"Life Is Hard"

There's a nice little genre of songwriting that skewers the mores of the age - call it social commentary, satire, whatever. Timbuk 3 were never really more than a novely act in most people's eyes, simply because their one big hit, "The Future's So Bright (I Gotta Wear Shades)" was so oddball. But this is an entirely darker affair, more on a par with "Welcome to the Boomtown", in which disgustingly self-satisfied yuppies get what they deserve: "After he stiffed the waitress, and ran out on his tab/Big Mac had a heart attack in the back of a yellow cab/By the time the sound of the sirens said the ambulance was coming/His heart had stopped beating, but the meter as still running/Life is hard." It's tough not to like a song that takes aim at a whole sub-generation of the greediest, most ruthless and self-serving people since the days of the British Empire.