#438: Blur, ‘Parklife’

FOOD, 1994

In 2023 alone, there have been at least 216,364 people laid off from 844 tech companies. Tech was the millennial’s gold rush. We were all headed west to get as close to Silicon Valley as possible. We were willing to grind, hustle and work hours that white-washed our personalities into synchronized “yes-man”-ery. All of this, for a piece of the pie. 

I was laid off at the beginning of June. It was a classic tech company in that I didn’t even really know what the company did. I just knew that we had half-day Fridays, awesome benefits and perks, and a really progressive team who wanted to fight for the little guy. I was willing to grind, hustle, and “yes-man” everyone there. 

The company was acquired. It changed. My personal life changed. First came the stress dreams, then self-esteem hits as new managers entered and told me I was bad at my job. Finally, all my relationships centered around my job drama. That was all I talked about. It became my identity. 

I was laid off. I cried. I went to the local water park and spent a lot of time quietly zoning out while staring at families floating round and round in the lazy river. I was just a person laying on a towel with nothing to gripe about or measure myself by. I had no idea who I was without a job.

My friend has been out of work for over a year. Her heart is so broken that she deleted LinkedIn. It was too painful looking at all of the “Hey, just got laid off” posts. 

It is hard. 

The main thing I got from this album is that this is not new. Every decade there is a new “tough economy” for the people entering the workforce. The millennial moment just seems to have a little bit of extra baggage in the form of student loans, and priced-out housing, and crippling mental diseases.

And yet, even though we know better, we continue to lay these suitcases at the altar of capitalism in the hopes of gaining special favor. We continue rushing for that gold, no matter how unfriendly the climate.

Blur gets it. English rock gets it. We all just need to listen to more English rock. English rock music is all about reclaiming our identities from capitalism. This album is the whole deal. 

The end of the song Parklife goes like this: 

I feed the pigeons, I sometimes feed the sparrows too
It gives me a sense of enormous well-being
(Parklife)
And then I'm happy for the rest of the day
Safe in the knowledge there will always be
A bit of my heart devoted to it

All the people
So many people
And they all go hand-in-hand
Hand-in-hand through their parklife

Parklife
(Parklife)
Parklife
(Parklife)

It's got nothing to do with Vorsprung durch Technik, you know?
(Parklife)
(Parklife) and it's not about you joggers
Who go round and round and round
(Parklife)
(Parklife)

Do you know what “Vorsprung durch Technik” means? The Audi catchphrase literally means “progress through technology.” 

Parklife (or real life) is not about constantly moving forward. It is simply just walking hand-in-hand with the people around us in our little spaces. It’s about feeding the pigeons and it’s about just being.

This is what I am trying to relearn. I am relearning Parklife.

---

Top songs: End of a Century, Badhead, To the End