Labour & Pop Culture: Soup is Good Food

This week’s installment of Labour & Pop Culture is “Soup is Good Food” by the Dead Kennedys. This 1985 songs speaks to the disposability of labour in contemporary capitalism.

We're sorry
But you're no longer needed
Or wanted or even cared about here
Machines can do a better job than you
And this is what you get for asking questions

Recorded in 1985, the song rings true today, particularly with the deskilling or elimination of jobs due to automation. Interestingly, it also examines how government’s manipulate economic data to hide the real state of the world:

We're sorry, you'll just have to leave
Unemployment runs out after just six weeks
How does it feel to be a budget cut?
You're snipped, you no longer exist 

Your number's been purged
From our central computer
So we can rig the facts
And sweep you under the rug
See our chart? Unemployment's going down
If that ruins your life that's your problem

Having been through periods of layoffs in two different jobs (and seeing my own employer recently propose reducing further the notice period for layoffs), this verse rings particularly true:

Now how does it feel
(We don't need you any more)
To be shit out our ass
And thrown in the cold like a piece of trash
(We don't need you any more)

And morale is down, you say?

Apologies for the lack of a video—punks don’t go for that MTV stuff.

We're sorry
But you're no longer needed
Or wanted or even cared about here
Machines can do a better job than you
And this is what you get for asking questions

The unions agree
Sacrifices must be made
Computers never go on strike
To save the working man
You've got to put him out to pasture

Looks like we'll have to let you go
Doesn't it feel fulfilling to know
That you the human being are now obsolete
And there's nothing in hell we'll let you do about it

Soup is good food
(We don't need you any more)
You made a good meal
(We don't need you any more)

Now how does it feel
(We don't need you any more)
To be shit out our ass
And thrown in the cold like a piece of trash

We're sorry, you'll just have to leave
Unemployment runs out after just six weeks
How does it feel to be a budget cut?
You're snipped, you no longer exist

Your number's been purged
From our central computer
So we can rig the facts
And sweep you under the rug
See our chart? Unemployment's going down
If that ruins your life that's your problem

Soup is good food
(We don't need you any more)
You made a good meal
(We don't need you any more)

Now how does it feel
(We don't need you any more)
To be shit out our ass
And thrown in the cold like a piece of trash

We're sorry, we hate to interrupt
But it's against the law to jump off this bridge
You'll just have to kill yourself somewhere else
A tourist might see you and we wouldn't want that

I'm just doing my job, you know, so say uncle
And we'll take you to the mental health zoo
Force feed you mind melting chemicals
Til' even the outside world looks great

In hi-tech science research labs
It costs too much to bury all the dead
The mutilated disease injected
Surplus rats who can't be used anymore

So they're dumped, with no minister present
In a spiraling corkscrew dispose all unit
Ground into sludge and flushed away
Aw geez!

We don't need you any more
We don't need you any more

Soup is good food
(We don't need you any more)
You made a good meal
(We don't need you any more)

Now how does it feel
(We don't need you any more)
To be shit out our ass
And thrown in the cold like a piece of trash
(We don't need you any more)

We know how much you'd like to die
(We don't need you any more)
We joke about it on our coffee breaks
(We don't need you any more)
But we're paid to force you to have a nice day
(We don't need you any more)
In the wonderful world we made just for you

"Poor rats", we human rodents chuckle
At least we get a dignified cremation
At yet, at 6 o'clock tomorrow morning
It's time to get up and go to work

-- Bob Barnetson