First they took away Napster,
And it was upsetting
But we found AudioGalaxy.
We carried on
Then they took away AudioGalaxy,
And we found true, free P2P
In the form of Gnutella.
We carried on.
Then they took away Gnutella,
Blocked our non-standard ports
And forced us back to the web,
To IRC, to email.
We carried on.
Then they took away the Internet,
Severed the connections,
And we were forced to furtively burn CDs
One to another,
As in days gone by.
We carried on.
Then they took away our lasers,
And we had no choice
But to return to the analogue tapes
We thought would be obselete forever.
We carried on.
Then they took away our magnets,
But the oldest among us remembered a way
Of storing sound in the grooves
Of a vinyl disc.
We carried on.
Then they took away our needles,
But we sat in a circle around a fire
And sang the songs to each other,
From night until morning.
We carried on.
Then they took away our
voices,
And I kept the songs in my
head
Over and over,
One after another,
So that they wouldn't
die,
So they wouldn't be forgotten,
So my
soul would preserve them.
I carried on.
Then they took away my soul.
inspired by reading the GPL while on the toilet