Well-Paid Profession
What Led Zeppelin might have written if the stairway led to cleanly-written, easily-maintained apps, rather than heaven.
"Well-Paid Profession"
There’s a junior who’s sure,
His app will run in Chrome
And he’s learning a well-paid profession…
The commit logs will show,
All the flaws in his code,
And the client won’t get what they paid for…
Ooh ooh ooh, new CPU
And he’s learning a well-paid profession
There's a task on the board,
We’ll accept it, he swore,
And you know how we hate extra meetings
At a desk, on a screen
There's a tech lead who pings
'Till the technical debt is forgiven
And it makes him blunder...
And it makes him blunder...
Some new framework, obsessed
Some new risk, unexpressed,
With a codebase unfit for maintaining,
When tests fail, call the team
Check the logs, chug caffeine
For the crashing of apps and complaining
Ooh it makes him blunder
Ooh it really makes him blunder
He’s a well-off buffoon,
Giant screens in his room,
Thinks that Microsoft Office is treason
Slightly pale, still withdrawn,
The world he’s foregone
Wears a hoodie, regardless of season
Oh, still no app to show…
If west-coast venture funds are dwindling in a recession,
It’s just the culling of the mainstream!
The coders scatter for remote roles, but in the long run,
Market salaries equilibrate…
And it makes them plunder
Oh whoa
He finds a TPM to shadow
To help his skills grow
He learns which managers will sink him..
Finds simple syntax for the road show
Preps a demo
Ships MVPs that stay slick and trim!
And now AI composes code,
Copilot threatens to patrol,
To find which stacks will overflow
And adds new packages to node,
But will the substitute be slowed?
‘Cause building products still is hard…
When human devs are all surpassed,
With only sev’rance to console, yeah
You’ll have some stock, but not a role!
And they’re learning a well-paid profession
Written By: "Weird Ev" Coopersmith & Flavio Kicis
"Stairway To Heaven"
There's a lady who's sure
All that glitters is gold
And she's buying a stairway to heaven
When she gets there she knows
If the stores are all closed
With a word she can get what she came for
Ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh
And she's buying a stairway to heaven
There's a sign on the wall
But she wants to be sure
'Cause you know, sometimes words have two meanings
In a tree by the brook
There's a songbird who sings
Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven
Ooh, it makes me wonder
Ooh, it makes me wonder
There's a feeling I get
When I look to the west
And my spirit is crying for leaving
In my thoughts I have seen
Rings of smoke through the trees
And the voices of those who stand looking
Ooh, it makes me wonder
Ooh, it really makes me wonder
And it's whispered that soon
If we all call the tune
Then the piper will lead us to reason
And a new day will dawn
For those who stand long
And the forests will echo with laughter
Oh whoa-whoa-whoa, oh-oh
If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now
It's just a spring clean for the May Queen
Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run
And there's still time to change the road you're on
And it makes me wonder
Oh, whoa
Your head is humming and it won't go
In case you don't know
The piper's calling you to join him
Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow?
And did you know
Your stairway lies on the whispering wind?
And as we wind on down the road
Our shadows taller than our soul
There walks a lady we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How everything still turns to gold
And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last
When all are one and one is all, yeah
To be a rock and not to roll
And she's buying a stairway to heaven
Written By: Led Zeppelin, 1971
