My grandpa was a miner, my father was a miner

I followed right behind them like a dutiful son

Down in the Appalachians, I worked for subpar wages

For blisters on my fingers and for black dust in my lungs

Until the day our foreman, he gathered up his core men

Said, “hell, I hate to tell you but your mining days are through

But no need for complaining, you'll undergo retraining

It’s time to join the modern world, it's time to start anew”

And that code won't write itself, boys, that code won’t write itself

Fast forward five years later, I'm at an incubator

My desk is ergonomic and my boss could be my kid

I've developed an efficient new mining algorithm

That tells a robot arm to do the tasks that I once did

My palms are getting soft now, I hardly ever cough now

Those years down in the mines are just a blip on my CV

“Full stack is my new bedrock”'s the title of my TED talk

Old colleagues call from hospitals to say they're proud of me

And that code won't write itself, boys, that code won't write itself

I've got this Marxist cousin, campaigns for basic income

He’ll never know the feeling of a chisel hitting stone

And though I’ve tried explaining, I can't say that I blame him

For busting up the windows of my new vacation home

Because yesterday, that boss kid, he called me to his office

Said “thank you for your service, sir, I hope you understand

That this new script we’re running makes personnel redundant

Why don't you try a hobby, maybe something with your hands?”

And that code will write itself, boys, that code will write itself