The songbook / Analog: a musical
Digital Revolution
The Act I finale, where everyone's separate struggles turn into one fight.
- Key
- C, then C♯ for the last chorus
- Capo
- None
- Tempo
- 120 BPM building to 140 BPM
- In the show
- Act I, No. 8 (finale)
- Sung by
- The whole company
- Feel
- Starts small and ends loud.
- Words & music
- Wes Ellis
- Am
- F
- C
- G
- Dm
- C♯
- G♯
- A♯m
- F♯
Tap any chord in the song to see its shape. The boxes are drawn right-handed; Lefty flips them, which is how I actually play. Use − and + to move the whole song into a key that suits your voice.
Transposed. The chord names and boxes have moved; any tab on this page is still written for the original key.
Got an email at 3 AM, my client's found a better way Liner noteThis was the first song written for the show. Everything else grew out of it.
Says an algorithm in five minutes does what took me half a day
Seventeen revisions, color schemes, and custom fonts
Now a prompt in ChatGPT gives them everything they want
Rent is due tomorrow and my savings hit the floor
While Silicon Valley profits from the art I used to draw
Every logo, every banner, every brand I helped create
Now machine learning's got my style, sealed my goddamn fate
We're living in a digital revolution
But we're the ones getting left behind
They promised us that tech was the solution
Now we're losing heart and losing mind
Upload, download, optimize, replace
Human touch erased without a trace
We're fighting for our souls in cyberspace
In this digital revolution!
(They say) "Adapt or die, evolve or fall"
(We say) "We gave our lives, we gave our all"
(They say) "The future's bright, the future's fast"
(We scream) "What if we're meant to be the past?"
We're living in a digital revolution
And we won't go quietly into the night Liner noteUp a half step here. The whole last chorus moves from C to C♯, which is why the chords suddenly look sharp.
If the machines want total substitution
Then we'll show them what it means to fight!
Upload, download, optimize, replace—
NO! We'll reclaim our rightful place
Our hearts still beat in cyberspace
Through this digital revolution!
From Analog, a stage musical by Wes Ellis. Words and music © Wes Ellis. All rights reserved. Play it, sing it, learn it; just don't pass it off as yours.