Wage II of 3 · Ninth Circle Records

The Ninth Circle

1997 · Ninth Circle Records · 6 tracks

The centerpiece. Six long tracks that move the seven-sins argument from the personal to the systemic. The closing track is a single suite of eighteen minutes and forty-two seconds. Otis Whitworth is credited as co-writer for the first time. Ninth Circle Records printed four thousand copies, twice the first pressing. They sold in eighteen months. Nobody at the label claimed to be surprised.

1. 01The Steel Mill Was a Chapel7:30
   Words as entered

   My father preached to men who worked the second shift
   Thirty-one years of iron on their hands
   He said the mill was the closest thing they had to church
   A place where the doing was the prayer
   A place where the sweat was the offering
   A place where the pay was the amen
   
   In 1988 they closed the doors
   They said the numbers didn't work
   The numbers came from an office three states away
   The numbers came from men who never touched iron
   The numbers came from a vice
   That had grown up
   
   The steel mill was a chapel
   The steel mill was a chapel
   And we let it fall
   And we let it fall
   
   Greed was the sin in the notebook
   Greed was the vice on the wall
   Greed is what you call it when it wears a face
   And a name you can point to
   Greed is what it stops being
   When enough people agree it's just the way things are
   
   The steel mill was a chapel
   The steel mill was a chapel
   And we let it fall
   And we let it fall
   
   The mill was the chapel
   The mill was the chapel
   Now the chapel is empty
   Now the chapel is empty

2. 02Ordinance6:15
3. 03Bureau of Averages8:20
4. 04The Managed Man9:40
   Words as entered

   He is not unhappy
   That is the first thing to understand
   He has a card that opens a door
   He has a chair that was measured for him
   He has a number that goes up a little every year
   And he has never once been asked
   
   His father chose things
   Chose them badly, chose them drunk, chose them proud
   But the choosing was his
   And the man in the chair has a form for that now
   Section four
   Preference indicated
   
   The managed man
   The managed man
   He was not broken
   He was arranged
   
   They did not take the fight out of him
   That would be a crime and somebody would have come
   They moved the fight somewhere he could not get to
   They put it behind a window with a number
   And a woman who is also managed
   Says the wait is currently four months
   
   Sloth was a sin when a man chose it
   Sloth is a service now
   Wrath was a sin when a man carried it
   Wrath is a department
   Greed was a sin when it wore a face
   Greed is a quarterly report
   
   The managed man
   The managed man
   He was not broken
   He was arranged
   
   I have sung at the funerals of men who worked the second shift
   I have sung at the funerals of men who drank
   I have never sung for a man
   Who did not know which of those he was
   
   I will sing at this one too
   And the form will say
   Deceased
   Cause of death
   Nothing in particular
   Nothing in particular
   
   The managed man
   The managed man
   He was not broken
   He was arranged
   
   He is not unhappy
   He is not unhappy
   Ask him
   Ask him

5. 05Bread and Circus5:18
   Words as entered

   On the first of every month
   There's a check in half the mailboxes on Avenue F
   It was meant to get us through the winter
   The mill closed in eighty-eight
   Some families followed the work to Atlanta
   The rest of us got just enough to stay
   That's the bread
   
   Then they floated bonds for a stadium downtown
   And the vote came in a landslide
   Eighty million and lights you can see from the mill
   And I voted yes like everybody else
   Same folks who cash the check
   That's the circus
   
   Nobody took a thing from us
   We traded it ourselves
   Rome did it for grain and a chariot race
   And Rome at least got fed
   
   BREAD AND CIRCUS
   AND WE TOOK THEM BOTH
   Bread and circus
   Both of them free
   BREAD AND CIRCUS
   NOTHING'S EVER FREE
   We paid for it
   With our dignity
   
   Mr. Haskins from our street went to every council meeting
   Second row, a yellow pad
   He studied the budget like the Bible
   And he asked them what it cost
   Now he bought two seats on the forty
   And he hasn't missed a game
   
   I am not against a full table
   I am not against a game
   A Roman wrote it down two thousand years ago
   The people who used to choose who led them
   Wanted two things, and only two
   And they got them
   
   BREAD AND CIRCUS
   AND WE TOOK THEM BOTH
   The council met on Tuesday
   To an empty second row
   BREAD AND CIRCUS
   NOTHING'S EVER FREE
   We paid for it
   With our dignity
   
   Saturday night, the lights are on
   First of the month, the mail
   Nobody took it
   We sold it
   Cheap

6. 06The Ninth Circle18:42