The Factory

This is my first completed rap song. It's about the negative feelings I have towards mandatory schooling. I'm pleased with how it turned out.

The beat has a slightly different structure from Part 1. The rap vocals are three layers each panned differently and pitch-bent to make my voice sound cooler. The master track has some reverb and a saturator acting as a limiter. Live 7 doesn't have a straight up limiter, so that is why I used a saturator instead.

Lyrics:

SUNG CHORUS:
Oh
those children they must conform
we'll protect them from all the storms
you'll know it was good for them
once they're working in the factory

VERSE 1:
At ten years old I took a test
to prove I was gifted
not one of the rest
I used hands to count, but I wasn't dumb
I failed by one point, for using fingers thumbs

I couldn't quickly multiply
so I was quickly classified
a person with a lesser mind
was not allowed to spend the time

with my best friend in school
in the gifted class
I was just a fool
who had trouble memorizing math

we had separate lunches
we had separate times
that we could go outside
we had separate lives

My mom tried to plead with them
was one point that much
you fail one test, and forever you're stuck?
but in a system based on rules, the rules cannot bend
when rules are the king, they must break you instead

if you run a factory, you're gonna need the labor
so start training the children you're doing them a favor

CHORUS

VERSE 2:
For eleven more years
I coasted through the system
did the minimum, sat in class and listened
I did all the homework, I followed the path
the funny thing is, it turned out I was good at math

I thought college was where I could find out
what mold my brain conformed to
what I was all about
what external label, to myself I could apply
and maybe on the way
there'd be other things to try

instead I was met
with bureaucratic limits
unable to play art
for not meeting prerequisites

so I realized
school could never show me
what was in my soul
it could not control me

Shedding the skin
of society's goals
I now chart a path
into a future of gold

to take what was mine
from the start
before the machine tried to break my heart

CHORUS