When they ask "How's work?"
We say Fine
This Post is about a song I wrote unpacking my complicated feelings about Billionaires, the icy knife of corporate Layoffs, and the Consumerism mindset I grew up with and perpetuate. It’s called “925.”
This may be admitting a fault of mine, but I tend to share my songs the day they come out and let them ride on their own from there. That’s putting it nicely - really, I let them drop with a single Post and tell myself that I don’t like the repetition of marketing. I want to do better.
This week, I realized this song’s moment might have come now, over a year after its original release on 9/25/2023. It’s a message I think people are ready to hear and build on, and so today I am sharing the influences and themes, as well as the process behind making the song in the Back of the Page section. I hope you find something…
Bandcamp New & Notable Feb 6, 2025
925
I don’t know
I can’t shake this feeling
Yeah
I go to work
You go to work, huh
Tell me to work
I make it work, huh
Tellin us lies, they thought it worked huh
Like, get back to work
My mind racin’
A mile a minute
I gotta go get it
I’m out if I spend it
So what’s the difference?
Blurred lines keep me up at night
The workin’ life
I gotta find my purpose, right?
Like, who am I without the work?
Feel like I was marked at birth
Wrapped up in net worth
Fed desires and urges
Still keep my fingers in the dirt
Remain earnest
The good worker
Hand me a shovel and point me to the furnace
Me Encanto, pero algo under the surface
Western front
Load up the trunk while they idle the hearse
But what’s worse?
They tell me that it’s worth it
Behind the frame, I unravel the curses
Still makin’ deals with Louie, designer urges
Spend it all on a purse, it kinda hurts, but
I think it’s worth it
Burnin’ notes like verses
Flame keeper, tendin’ the hearth
You know what it’s worth
You know that it’s work
For someone like me
To breathe heat and still keep that red fire purpose
Back into my 9 to 5 on Earth is manufactured urgent
They tryna’ call us insurgent
Askin for answers we deserve, like
Who is the work for?
Who does it work for?
They count the checks ‘n pay you less to do more
Conjugate “lay” 3 ways in the
Only family where you’re worth what you’re paid, huh
Uh huh
Well, that’s just how I feel inside
Tip-toe the line
Lights bright, with the open eyes
Connect the dots, with a open mind
They tell us what we need to survive, like
You gotta eat, I gotta eat, fine
Shoes on the feet, car in the street, fine
They found theirs, I gotta find, mine
Eyes up
Cigars and fine wine
Weave it in the rhyme
Tell ‘em they’ll be fine
With a little touch of the rise and grind
Hustle in line
Stutter step or they’ll leave you behind
There’s no time, we only climb
Well, one day the blimp says the world is mine
And what then?
They build rockets and buy mines
Extensions, what’s in short supply
Guess they couldn’t look inside
Play monopoly money
We tryna peel-off a prize
Monocle the design
Take a close look and
Maybe that’s why
When they ask how’s work?
We say
Fine
Credits
Released 9/25/2023
Lyrics written and performed by Van Miranda
Music produced by Icee Red
Mix and master by Deya Records & Angel Vergara
Back of the Page
This song started as a reaction to hearing the AI song “Heart on my Sleeve” “by” Ghostwriter977, back in 2023. The uncanny (and eerily artificial) voices of Drake and The Weeknd shook me, and I got mad. Very mad.
Initially, I was writing to rage-out at the idea of human voices being exploited without consent. I was afraid of a future where our Work, the essence of who we are, could be taken and re-packaged at will. What would that mean for my survival, as someone who needs to Produce?
I wrote for a month to this idea, firing shots at AI Ghostwriters and Big Tech, like they were the only problem. Then something told me to listen to TOOL, a band I hadn’t heard since my High School days. Immediately, I felt it - rage at an entire system. One that convinced us our Work was the essence of who we were. That our output defined us and granted conditional permission to exist. That what we earned and consumed would determine our value. Losing control of the natural gifts we use to produce work and earn a living made me feel threatened.
This was not something new, though. If you read , there is a long history of people being exploited for their labor, and this AI Song was just the latest stunt demonstrating what’s possible. It felt closer to me because I have experience in Tech, made Chatbots to “make people more productive” before generative AI was a thing, and now I make music. At a higher vantage point, it feels privileged for me to get offended at this particular use case, given the horrors of violence inflicted on people around the world for their labor. Why would I clutch my pearls at AI voices when there are deeper evils at play? Like most triggers, it was a personalized entry point to grow - a thread to pull on.
Man’s Red Fire
My writing expanded from there, as an image of King Louie from The Jungle Book came to mind. The song “I Wanna Be Like You” by Louie Prima came back to life - Mowgli wanting to stay in the Jungle, and King Louie wanting the secret of “Man’s Red Fire.” That would become the working title of this song as I shared these ideas with Icee Red, the Producer. What were we really trading for our labor? And what deals had we made to become men, and get out of the jungle?
“I’ve reached the top and had to stop, and that’s what’s bothering me / I wanna be a man, man-cub, and stroll right into town.”
There’s a long list of Hip Hop influences for this song, like Nas’ “Hip Hop is Dead”
“Everybody sound the same, commercialize the game / Reminisce when it wasn’t all business / It forgot where it started”
If we think of our voices as roots and branches of a tree, we’re always building on each other’s Work, and expression. But there’s a way to do it authentically, and Generative AI is not it. In “Hip Hop is Dead”, Nas samples “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” by Iron Butterfly, a song he sampled on “Thief’s Theme” as well.
This chain of influence felt like carrying a torch - someone sets it down and you pick it up on the path. There’s a difference between exploitation, appropriation, and building on a message. That’s something that can’t be explained - I don’t even know if I’m “doing it right” - so, AI will probably never understand.
Sting was quoted as saying:
“So that was the truth, musicians steal from each other – we always have. I don't know who can claim to own a rhythm or a set of chords at all, it's virtually impossible.”
And yet Artists like Sting have lawyers that require people to pay to use their samples, because at the end of the day, we are really good at convincing each other that we Own All The Work - like flowers, blooming: yeah there are roots, but we need to capture the sunlight, and reproduce, to survive.
This is true for most of us, who are not independently wealthy and are working jobs to survive. In thinking about this in my own life, the themes from the Monopoly game I played at McDonalds as a kid came to mind:
“Play Monopoly money / we tryna peel off a prize / monocle the design”
As an adult, I made my own deal with King Louie: buying a Louis V. bag when I had a windfall. The zipper broke in the first month of keeping it in a dust jacket and barely using it, and I re-sold it at a loss, realizing I didn’t need a precious status symbol. It kinda hurt, to realize I spent months of what is now my salary on a bag I didn’t need. But this is how we learn.
The World is Yours
In college, I watched “Scarface” for the first time: a power fantasy of accumulating wealth and power by any means necessary. As he looks out on the World he created for himself, you can see a realization dawning in his eyes: maybe he didn’t want this after all. The camera pans out on the mansion he isolated himself in, friends and family dead. The blimp seems to be taunting him with “THE WORLD IS YOURS…”
In writing this song, I thought about acknowledging the chain of Nas’ & Pete Rock’s musical influence with my own nod to “The World is Yours”
“And one day the blimp says the World is mine, and what then? They build rockets and buy mines / extensions, what’s in short supply / guess they couldn’t look inside”
It’s my shot at Billionaires, rocketing off to outer space and buying mines in Africa to find new frontiers to exploit people, and our role in buying the new phone to complete the circuit.
It’s complicated, and I don’t have the answers. This song isn’t meant to be a solution to anything, which is why I end it the only way I know how:
When they ask “How’s work?” We say “Fine.”