Michael Gaither

Two new corporate speak-inspired songs made their way onto the new record, “Hey Karma”. Here’s the story behind them.

I’ve always had a techy day job that centers around writing and communicating. It pays the bills and is more often than not pretty interesting. Two years ago, I went on holiday to a songwriting retreat in Idaho. I spent a week with rivers, trees, other artists…and went home with seven new songs. (Five were “keepers”.)

En route for home, I had time to kill in the Boise airport, so I did a quick glance at work email, to see what I missed. Words like “paradigm,” “ideate,” and “align” spilled out in my inbox. Yup, I was going back to the real world. I said, “I need to write about this” and ended up with this he-said, she-said tune called “Best of Breed Romance”:

See, I was working for a big company at the time. No names (but it’s in my LinkedIn profile if you’re that curious). Lots of smart people there, and I was a grateful for a 16-year run at the place, but did they like their big silly words. I remember one day at a meeting when a Director used the word “ecosystem” 12 times in ten-minute presentation. (I’m not kidding. I counted. It kept me awake.) That one moment probably led to the song above. You take inspiration anywhere you find it.

The next year, layoffs started happening. Wait. Strike that. We don’t use the word “layoff” anymore. We’re “reorg’d,” “downsized,” or as my pals in the UK tell me, “made redundant”. I thought: That happy couple from “Best of Breed Romance?” They need to break up.

Later that same year, I was reorg’d. Gotta admit I took more than a little pleasure in recording “It’s Nothing Personal (The Layoff Song)”.

Epilogue: These days I’m working for a VERY cool, smaller company that uses real words with people who are wonderful communicators. No one’s asked me to align to a new paradigm or engage in an end-to-end holistic ideation since I was hired. There’s hope.

Want to Pick Up a Copy of These?
Both of these songs are on the new “Hey Karma” record, available on my web site, on CD Baby, and in iTunes.