Little Boxes

Little boxes on the benchside
Little boxes made of ticky-tacky
Little boxes on the benchside
Little boxes, all the same.
There's a blue one
And a tan one
And a grey one
And a pebble one.
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.

First the schedules for the boxes
Are determined by indeterminants
Then they're put in little boxes
Tiny boxes, all the same.
Well, this slips some

And that slides some
Still determined by indeterminants
But they're put in little boxes
And they all turn out the same.

Then the hardware and the software
Are pressed tight into the schedules
Where they buckle
And they rupture
And they turn a bit insane.
Here's a flip-flop
There's a byte swap
But you can't find the overall design
Cause it's put in little boxes
Dusty boxes, all the same.

Then we show all of the boxes
To the people outside the company
And they buy those little boxes
Cause they all have a special name.
There's a blue one
And a tan one
And a grey one
And a pebble one
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
Silly boxes, all the same.