Dulled by Design

Lyrics

[Intro]
Five blades.
Fifteen degrees of tilt.
You promised me a clean line.

[Verse 1]
In the buzzing fluorescent light of 6:45 a.m.
You sit there, waiting.
A perfect little machine of chrome and blue plastic.
King Camp Gillette, in 1901, he didn't dream of this, did he?
Or maybe he did.
This perfect, captive motion.
The aloe and the polyethylene glycol, a smooth lie.
The first three shaves were a miracle.
The fourth, a hesitation.
The fifth, a pull. A nick. A betrayal.

[Chorus]
This wasn't an accident.
This was a meeting. This was a memo.
This was a choice made in a lab, decades ago.
Dulled by design.
Built to fail in my hand.
You were never meant to last.
Just meant to be replaced.
And there's no going back. No stone, no strop, no fixing this.

[Verse 2]
Those little rubber fins, they told me they were for comfort.
A lie.
They stretch the skin just so.
So the first blade does too much work.
So the other four die faster.
The geometry is a trap.
The spacing, 0.8 millimeters, just enough so I can't clean it, can't sharpen it.
It's a whisper of planned failure, right here on my jawline.
The bright orange wear strip, faded to bone white.
Used up.

[Chorus]
This wasn't an accident.
This was a meeting. This was a memo.
This was a choice made in a lab, decades ago.
Dulled by design.
Built to fail in my hand.
You were never meant to last.
Just meant to be replaced.
And there's no going back. No stone, no strop, no fixing this.

[Bridge]
I press the button.
The ejector spring, used only once.
And you fly off.
You hit the stainless steel bin with a hollow little clatter.
And in that sound, I hear a billion others.
A landfill of tiny, perfect failures.
Each one bought and paid for.
Each one a promise, kept for a week.

[Outro]
The new one clicks in place.
The new one clicks in place.
A clean line.
For now.