Little Boxes

You can find many versions of this song on youtube now because it is used as the theme for a popular Showtime program, Weeds,^[1] but I doubt any are better or even comparable to this. Pete Seeger has a beautiful rich voice and an understanding of the phenomenon, which he resisted throughout his long life. The song was written in the 1950s, but despite occasional pause the process has only accelerated since. Boxes made of ticky-tacky sprout everywhere, except that they're not all that little. Likewise, even more than in the past, people go on conveyor belts through assembly line education ... the reproduction of elites and not-so-elites alike. As individuality and deviation are systematically stamped out, so too is imagination and creativity.

Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same,
There's a pink one and a green one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And the people in the houses
All went to the university
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same
And there's doctors and lawyers
And business executives
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And they all play on the golf course
And drink their martinis dry
And they all have pretty children
And the children go to school,
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university
Where they are put in boxes
And they come out all the same.

And the boys go into business
And marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same,
There's a pink one and a green one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same