The Y2K Song: The Day the Software Died

  80% written by Dr. Chordate, 20% by ?

A short, short time ago, I can still remember

How my laptop used to make me smile.

And I knew if I had a mouse, I could point, click, surf, and browse,

And make my boss happy for awhile.

But Y2K makes me shiver as my hard drive starts to quiver.

With data that is screwed up, systems that won't boot up.

Well, I don't remember if I cried when I learned my CDs were fried,

And something dissed my floppy drive the day the software died.

Chorus:

And I was singing,

By, by, all America cries. We've been erased and we don't know why.

Those good ol' boys were using DVD drives,

And sayin', "This'll be the day that I die. This'll be the day that I die."

Did you write this book of codes, and do you have faith that they will load,

Internet Explore installed.

Do you believe you'll find a gate accessing 21rst century dates?

And can you teach me how to write COBOL?

Well, I know that you've been sending flames. You hate to go back to mainframes.

You trashed all your RAM. Man, I dig that crazy spam.

I'm a lonely, middle age Ph.D. with a real IBM PC

That won't backspace or delete the day the software dies.

Chorus:

Now for ten years we've been downsized, sold, merged, and trivialized,

And now we haven't got a prayer.

Coders think they're queens and kings demanding all sorts of things

That before you know they wouldn't dare.

And with the networks shutting down, and MacIntosh icons that frown.

Offensinve DOS commands; they don't understand.

And while a newbie reads a COBOL book and says he's got us off the hook,

He doesn't yet know where to look, the day the software dies.

I met a guy from Microsoft, and I asked him how much he had lost,

But he just scowled and turned away.

So I went down to the software store where I'd bought Windows years before,

But the man there said that Netscape, it wouldn't play.

And in cubicles, the users screamed, accountants cried, and coders schemed.

But no servers awoke. The modems all were broke.

And the three men I admire most: Bill Gates, Dave Packard, and Steve Jobs-

The caught the last plane for the coast, the day the software died.

Second Chorus:

And they were singing,

Byte, byte, why are we on this flight.

It's never gonna land 'cause controllers can't sight.

We should have seen this coming, now it's payback time.

And this'll be the day that we die. This'll be the day that we die.

Repeat first Chorus:

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