Description:
‘Down in the Valley’ – sometimes also known as ‘Birmingham Jail’ – is a traditional American folk song that was circulating in earnest in the 1920s. Versions have been recorded by a huge set of music icons, with our favourites including those of Pete Seeger, Tex Ritter, the Blue Ridge Mountain Boys, Solomon Burke, and a Glen Campbell version which encouraged us to include modulations up a perfect fourth cos they’re very uplifting.
The song comes from a deep heritage mixing English, Irish, Scottish, Appalachian, and Ozark influences, with its distinctive mournful (perhaps jailhouse) waltz. For our version we’ve stepped away from a love ballad, but there is a lament in the arrangement and it hopefully feels resonant of US pioneer history. It contemplates how some of the more progressive ideas that were kindled by early generations of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs have been flamboyantly cast aside by the latest cohort, as they move aggressively to embrace a different set of values – scrabbling for an ever-more concentrated and destructive matrix of resources and power, while backfilling flimsy self-oriented rationales. Not that US tech or Silicon Valley didn’t always have its fair share of corporate greed, competition, and self-promotion, but there was often at least a veneer of social conscience, environmental mindfulness, techno-altruism, and a kind of confidence and coolness that the current crop of tech bros have lost, as they suck at whatever teat will fit with their fantasies of deregulation, accumulation, and self-glorification.
For info on the folk song: https://balladofamerica.org/down-in-the-valley/
For info on the history of Silicon Valley: Margaret O’Mara, The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America (2019); on the biography of William Shockley: Joel Shurkin, Broken Genius (2006)
To buy this song as a download on Bandcamp: https://themarshfamily.bandcamp.com/track/silicon-valley
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DIGITAL: https://orcd.co/hollowchapters
PHYSICAL: CDs or LPs: https://themarshfamily.bandcamp.com/album/hollow-chapters
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LYRICS
Silicon Valley, where did you go?
Used to be kind of get-up-and-go
That chapter’s over – new colours show
Something’s come over every tech bro
Pioneer spirits, once broke new ground
Frontier outfits, set to astound
New moral compass turned them around
Now like the Donners, they’ll eat what they’ve found
They treat the world like Lord of the Rings
They riddle Earth with crypto-mined kings
Buying up puppets, pulling the strings
Be a good hobbit: don’t clip their wings
Paranoid hubris, clinging like smoke
Crass manifestos clichés invoke
Stuck in denial, whingin’ ‘bout ‘woke’
Endlessly wealthy, somehow they’re broke
Silicon Valley, let us regale
William Shockley’s cautionary tale
Legendary founder, went off the rail
From a success to cultural fail
From Palo Alto, hungry and smart
He hit the East Coast, got a kick-start
Helped out in wartime, playing his part
Prize-winning research: state of the art
Solid-state physics, brain full of sparks
Semi-conductors, making his mark
Signed up to Stanford, start-ups embarked
But Shockley’s journey turned pretty dark
Habits got grumpy, sacked employees
Troublesome mindset, quite hard to please
Spouted eugenics, false expertise
Funded by fascists, causing unease
Kind of psychotic, behind the scenes
Gave to a sperm bank, proud of his genes
Went from a legend, making machines
To a sad end, like his little beans
What will your new breed leave us behind?
Fixing the climate, great new designs?
Rocketing wealth gaps, unchecked AI
Shitgibbon history, Bond villain minds
Silicon Valley, what of you’s left?
Every back-alley seems to be cleft
Hitched to your new mule, journey’s bereft
Where will it lead to: damage and theft
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THANKS SO MUCH TO PATREONS (HOWLERS below):
Graham Peirson
Jeremy Sedgley
John Hanger
Stephen Shuttleworth
Sacramento Scott
Christian Schranz
Peter Green
Richard Boultbee
LisaMarie Fitzpatrick
Ed Rocheck
Wolfgang Tampier
Dan McColm
Douglas Lind
David Ryan
Simon Haslam
Lew
Mike Smith
Andy Riches
Cliff Hope
Carol Leff
Geeta & Karen (Alyssa Sangeeta Jacobson Memorial)
David Patrao
Grandad
Views: 10,066
Published: July 24, 2026
Channels: Marsh Family
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