After mk Ultra broke up in 1999, Vanderslice wasted little time building a solo reputation. In 2000, he gained national media attention over his single Bill Gates Must Die after concocting an elaborate hoax in which Microsoft supposedly threatened legal action over supposed trademark violations (the disc had a similar etching to a Windows installation disc).
Subsequent albums, Time Travel is Lonely, Life and Death of an American Fourtracker, Cellar Door, Pixel Revolt and Emerald City have gained critical acclaim for their melodic quality and sophisticated narrative lyrical content. Vanderslice has spent much of the last few years on tour across North America, Europe, and Japan.
Vanderslice also founded a recording studio in 1997 called Tiny Telephone. Located in the Mission District of San Francisco, Tiny Telephone has carved out a niche as the last all-analog recording studio in the Bay Area, and has a policy of setting recording rates under market prices. Bands who have used Vanderslice's studio include Beulah, Death Cab for Cutie, Okkervil River and Spoon.
Vanderslice is a proponent of using analog instruments and recording equipment to produce a richer, more raw sound which he has sometimes called "dirty hi-fi". He has collaborated closely with Scott Solter in the production of his recent albums, with Pixel Revolt being notably shaped by Solter.
Vanderslice was a contributing producer on the Spoon album, Gimme Fiction, and has collaborated and toured with The Mountain Goats. He is strongly influenced by film and is a fan of David Lynch, whose work is referenced in his song "Promising Actress". His declared musical influences are diverse, ranging from Neutral Milk Hotel to Public Enemy. He is an avid photography hobbyist. He has incorporated the poetry of William Blake and Robert Lowell into his music.
Several songs on the album Pixel Revolt referenced the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent global political situation. This is also true of Vanderslice's most recent album, Emerald City.
Bill Gates Must Die
John Vanderslice Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Keep pouring out of my machine
I just typed a word
And I just pressed return
Someone made this easy
Someone made this inevitable
So for bringing me here
Must die
People stray, people stray
People stray, people stray
People stray, just don't say
I'll never make it back intact
Teeny tiny little teens
Keep pouring out of my machine
Backdoors, passwords galore
Only the hackers
Only the feds know
Know know where I've been
Know just how far out I've been
So for bringing me here
Bill gates must die
Must die
People stray, people stray
People stray, people stray
People stray, just don't say
I'll never make it back intact
The lyrics of John Vanderslice's song "Bill Gates Must Die" appear to be a critique of the growing power and influence of technology in modern society, as well as the role of figures like Bill Gates in shaping this trend. The song's opening lines, referring to "teeny tiny little teens" pouring out of a machine, suggest the overwhelming, almost dehumanizing scale of our technological dependency.
The lines "Someone made this easy / Someone made this inevitable" hint at the idea that technology has become so deeply integrated into our lives that it is difficult to imagine functioning without it. However, this is tempered by a sense of unease and paranoia, as the lyrics suggest that our online activities are constantly being monitored by powerful organizations like "hackers" and "the feds."
The repeated refrain of "Bill Gates Must Die" seems to suggest that the singer feels that Gates and others like him are responsible for creating this technological dystopia, and should be held accountable for the ways in which it has transformed our lives. The final lines of the song, with their plea to "never make it back intact," suggest a fear of being lost or subsumed by the machine-like world that Gates and others have created.
Line by Line Meaning
Teeny tiny little teens
Small snippets of code are constantly being produced by my computer
Keep pouring out of my machine
These snippets keep coming out nonstop
I just typed a word
I performed a simple action
And I just pressed return
I completed the action by hitting the enter key
Someone made this easy
The developers made this process very user-friendly and simple
Someone made this inevitable
The developers made it so that using this computer is inevitable in today's society
So for bringing me here
Because Bill Gates created Windows and brought me into the world of computers
Bill gates must die
Metaphorically, Bill Gates must be eliminated for causing our dependence on technology
People stray, people stray
People drift away from themselves and their true selves
People stray, people stray
People lose their way in life easily
People stray, just don't say
We tend to hide our lostness or weaknesses from others
I'll never make it back intact
Even if I find my way again, I won't be the same as before
Backdoors, passwords galore
There are many ways for people to access my personal data without my consent
Only the hackers
It takes a certain level of expertise to exploit these vulnerable spots
Only the feds know
Government entities may have knowledge or control over certain aspects of the technology world
Know know where I've been
I'm not even sure where my data has gone or been accessed
Know just how far out I've been
I may have strayed far from reality without realizing it
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