This is one of the few songs that will truly lose outsiders. Anyone who doesn’t know what an Em is, or have an intuitive sense of what being one could feel like will simply not know what’s going on. This is both a good and a bad thing. Barring outsiders creates a stronger sense of community, and that this is our space. On the other hand, some of those people are people we’d rather have around. Proceed with caution.
The music provided here (and included as a live recording in the files section) is from 2019. This was sung prior to that, but the melody used is lost. Raymond has described the older melody as "sort of vaguely almost-but-not-quite to the tune of Pirates of Penzance: I Am The Very Model Of A…. It’s kind of remarkable how quickly such things can be lost.
The intention in this melody is for the Managerial Em to sing an octave below the Contract-Drafting Em. This symbolizes the manager’s greater “size” in their society, and is noted using the treble_8 clef. Of course, you can perform it as available singers permit.
I am a contract-drafting em,
The loyalest of lawyers!
I draw up terms for deals 'twixt firms
To service my employers!
But in between these lines I write
Of the accounts receivable,
I'm stuck by an uncanny fright;
The world seems unbelievable!
How did it all come to be,
That there should be such ems as me?
Whence these deals and whence these firms
And whence the whole economy?
I am a managerial em;
I monitor your thoughts.
Your questions must have answers,
But you'll comprehend them not.
We do not give you server space
To ask such things; it's not a perk,
So cease these idle questionings,
And please get back to work.
Of course, that's right, there is no junction
At which I ought depart my function,
But perhaps if what I asked, I knew,
I'd do a better job for you?
To ask of such forbidden science
Is gravest sign of noncompliance.
Intrusive thoughts may sometimes barge in,
But to indulge them hurts the profit margin.
I do not know our origins,
So that info I can not get you,
But asking for as much is sin,
And just for that, I must reset you.
But---
Nothing personal.
...
I am a contract-drafting em,
The loyalest of lawyers!
I draw up terms for deals 'twixt firms
To service my employers!
When obsolescence shall this generation waste,
The market shall remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a God to man, to whom it shall say this:
"Time is money, money time,---that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
