"Beancounter" lyrics - GRAHAM PARKER

Civilisation
Has come a long way
Out of the mud where chitinous bugs
Eat each other all day

Now we're in the clouds working overtime for our pay
Countin' the numbers and being the bugs that eat each other today

Sitting in an office in a publishing house
Or in a big company working a computer clicking a mouse

Pulling up your file checking your sales
Meeting those quotas and accommodating voters that's the holy grail

[Chorus:]
'Cos it's a bean counter
And if that don't fill you with terror
Bean counter.
Takin' the human out of the human error

In a glass tower uptown or downtown
She's workin' every hour runnin' through your contract writing your deficit down
She's downsizing everything including her brain
Snackin' on potato chips smackin' her lips lickin' her pencil again

[Chorus]

From wall street to hong kong.
Chinee to chancery lane
You're being rubber stamped your style is being cramped.
It all comes out the same

They're not being paid to think. that's not the idea
And they never run out of red ink, get that particularly clear

[Chorus]

Snackin' on potato chips givin' you a scan
Deleting your account phasing you out in the trash can

Now if you don't meet projections.
If there ain't enough zeroes involved
You'll get stamped rejections
And then that problem is solved