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Song Parodies -> "Life During Valid"

Original Song Title:

"Life During Wartime"

 (MP3)
Original Performer:

Talking Heads

Parody Song Title:

"Life During Valid"

Parody Written by:

Lou Scheffer

The Lyrics

This version explains what it was like to work at Valid Logic Systems, a company that made software and hardware for Electronic Design Automation in the mid-80s. It's full of in jokes and obscure references. There is a pointer to an annotated version at the end.
Heard of some programs loaded with features,
Hacked up and ready to go
Heard of some test sites, out on the East coast,
Some places nobody knows
The sound of core dumps, off in the distance,
I'm gettin' used to it now
They want some manuals, they want some app notes
I ain't got time for that now

This ain't no Mentor, this ain't no Daisy,
This ain't no fooling around
No time for Apples, or PC-ATs
I ain't got time for that now

Transmit a packet, into the ether,
Hope for an answer some day
I got three REALchips, couple of REALfasts,
Don't even know my REALname
Down in production, the tapes are rolling
Everything's ready to go
I sleep in the daytime, I work in the nightime,
I might not ever get home

This ain't no Mentor, this ain't no Daisy,
This ain't no fooling around
This ain't no SouthCon, or A.D.E.E.
I ain't got time for that now

Heard about Seiden? Heard about Crummet?
Heard about Orange at D.A.?
You ought to know not to scroll in a window,
It's gonna take you all day
I got a truckload of Dr. Pepper,
To last a couple of days
But I ain't got no speakers, only blue headphones
Can't hear the music that way

Why stay in college? Why go to night school?
Why get a C.S. degree?
Can't write no FORTRAN, can't read no Pascal,
I can't do either in C
This ain't no Mentor, this ain't no Daisy,
This ain't no fooling around
I'd like to change clothes, I'd love to shower,
I ain't got time for that now

Trouble in login, guessed the root password,
Somebody said it aloud
Now we got /dev/mem, we're patching UNIX,
We know that that ain't allowed
We dress like students, we dress like Dead Heads,
Never a suit or a tie
I changed my title, so many times now,
I don't know what my job's like!
We run on VM, we run on Vaxen
They make a pretty poor team
Got no debugger, have to use writelns,
printouts, ream after ream
Burned all my comments, what good are comments
They won't help me compile
My Shortened program, core dumped in malloc
Guess I'll debug for a while

{ begin slow fade out }
Maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day,
There'll be some food we can eat
Don't get exhausted, I'll do some coding
You ought to get you some sleep
Try to stay healthy, physical fitness,
don't want to catch no disease
Try to be careful, don't take no chances
Better not ride in the street

Pretty obscure, huh? Here's a link to the Annotated Version that explains the song, at least somewhat.

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User Comments

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Christie Marie M - July 10, 2006 - Report this comment
Very Impressive! It takes me back to Information Technology class. I love how your parody meets with the original song! Very creative with a twist of poetic talent! All in all, I bet you had spent a lot of time putting this parody together! Great theme song for computer science buffs!! How do youmanage to pull it off? Keep it up!!! 555

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