Working the Pivot was inspired by an interview I watched with a woman who unexpectedly won a congressional seat in the United States government.

She did not come from the polished political machine. She was not some perfectly groomed puppet who had been trained for this since college. She had no major political experience outside of a short military career, and from what I understood, her reason for running was pretty simple: she saw things during her time in the military, and she wanted to help veterans.

Then she won.

And her life changed forever.

She went into office with six major goals, she held onto them tightly.

But before she even took the oath, the machine started teaching her how things worked.

There were pre-pledge meetings. There were people explaining how to play ball. There was a fuck-ass ethics meeting where she was told what was and was not ethical, even though, according to her, almost none of those rules seemed to matter once she actually saw how Washington operated.

Then came the praise.

Her party held her up as the future. Cameras. Interviews. Private meetings. Fashion companies. Drug companies. Military weapons producers. All kinds of people suddenly wanted to talk to her.

And the strange part was, they did not always ask for anything directly.

Sometimes they just wanted to meet her. To ask about her. To hear what she was doing. To make her feel important.

Building the ego.
Stoking the fire.

One of the details that stuck with me most was her relationship with the congressional police. Because of her military background, she felt comfortable talking to them while she was trying to navigate Washington. She would apologize for asking them so many questions, and they would tell her they did not mind because she was nice to them.

Unlike many others.

That confused her, so she asked what they meant.

That was when she learned that they usually gave new members of Congress about six months before they became cold, dismissive, and mean to the people around them. People who once said “good morning” started ignoring others completely. People who once stood in line with everyone else suddenly acted like lines were for lesser humans.

She described seeing that attitude spread everywhere.

At one point, she was in a coffee shop waiting in a long line to pay. Another member of Congress saw her and asked why she was waiting. Then that person cut the line, paid, and left.

That moment says a lot.

Maybe some of these people were already shitheads before they got power.

Or maybe the system itself turns you into one.

That idea is the center of Working the Pivot.

The system does not always have to break you.

It just rearranges you.

Over time, this woman was attacked by her own side. Her party turned on her. The media turned on her. Washington turned on her. All because she stood up for one of the things she originally cared about.

She stayed in politics. She gained positions off and on throughout her career. She kept fighting in her own way. But from the outside, it felt like she never fully accomplished the things she originally came there to do.

Barely hanging on to herself.

Because I do believe there are people who run for office because they actually care. The problem is that they do not just enter a building, they enter a machine.

A machine that knows how to flatter them, isolate them, pressure them, reward them, threaten them, exhaust them, and eventually train them. It does not need every person to become evil. It just needs them to become useful.

Useful to the system.
Useful to the donors.
Useful to the party.
Useful to the illusion.

That is where the slaughterhouse image came from.

The naive politician thinks they are walking into power, purpose, and public service. But the system is moving them through the rails. Around the corners. One small compromise at a time. One ego stroke at a time. One soft threat at a time.

Until they follow the herd around that last corner.

That is Working the Pivot.

The lyrics were originally much longer. I had so much I wanted to say, but I had to keep cutting it back and forcing myself to stay focused on the message.

Otherwise, this thing would have been a thirty-minute song.

So the answer became rap metal.

Growing up, I loved Linkin Park, Rage Against the Machine, and Papa Roach. Those bands knew how to deliver a lot of words, a lot of anger, and a lot of meaning without losing the song itself. That early 2000s alt-metal and rap-metal energy became the backbone for this track.

The verses carry the weight. They are dense, angry, and full of the machinery.

Then the chorus opens up.

Hook-driven. Bigger. More melodic. A break from the pressure of the verses, but still connected to the same idea.

LYRA and I got to work, and the result became one of the most important songs I have written so far.

It is about the machine.

The one that smiles.

The one that trains.

The one that tells you that you are special while it quietly teaches you where to stand, what to say, who to serve, and what parts of yourself to leave behind.

Working the Pivot comes out Friday, June 12th on YouTube and Spotify.