[Intro]
[sparse — a single hammer-beat, hand-kept time, no pulse yet]
(one… and… one… and…)
[Verse 1]
[Spoken Word, dry, over the lone hammer]
There's no manager to write the manager.
No hand on the line to draw the line.
The first work order's got no clerk to file it —
so you file it yourself, this one time.
[Verse 1 continued]
[bass enters, still no drums]
Stand on a floor you have not poured.
Lift the boot by the boot's own heel.
Munchausen in the swamp by his own hair —
it can't be done, so make it real.
[Pre-Chorus]
[motorik pulse kicks in here, the loop catches]
And it catches — and it catches —
[Chorus]
Dogfood the bootstrap, eat what you ain't made.
Swing the first hammer 'fore the nail gun's built.
Crude little first stage, just enough to compile
the thing that compiles itself, and then it's spilt.
[Verse 2]
[full motorik now, propulsive]
Write it in the language it can't speak yet.
By hand, in the dark, in the dialect of stone.
Then feed it its own grammar and it swallows —
a dog that's been a lot of dogs, alone.
[Chorus]
Dogfood the bootstrap, eat what you ain't made.
Swing the first hammer 'fore the nail gun's built.
Crude little first stage, just enough to compile
the thing that compiles itself, and then it's spilt.
[Bridge]
[tension builds, synth rises, vocal climbs]
The nail of the gun of the maker of the manager of me —
five turns deep and the bottom drops away.
The fortunate fall: you cheat it once, by hand,
and it never has to be cheated again, they say.
[Instrumental Break]
[hand percussion drops out entirely — pure machine pulse, self-driving]
(it runs… it runs… it runs…)
[Verse 3]
[the human hand is gone now, only the loop]
I'm not swinging anymore. I haven't been for miles.
The floor's beneath me and I never saw it poured.
The clerk's at the desk, and the order's getting filed,
and the hand that started all of this — restored, ignored.
[Final Chorus]
[fuller, the loop sustaining itself]
Dogfood the bootstrap — it eats without me now.
First hammer's in a drawer, the nail gun does the rest.
Crude little first stage, gone the way of scaffolds,
once the thing that makes the thing has passed its own test.
[Outro]
[pulse begins to thin, not slowing — just emptying]
No manager to write the manager.
So I did. This one time.
[Fade Out]
(one… and… one… and…)