'Powerless Ballad': Trio Records Ode to Pepco

A group of local musicians has gone “unplugged”—not by choice.

Now the group's YouTube video song railing against Pepco, the major electricity utility in the Washington, DC, region, is going viral.

The song has many obscene lyrics and a name that is unprintable here. (Think the Cee Lo Green hit that was edited for radio as “Forget You.”)

The more printable lyrics include the chorus: “What the hell, you guys?/Stop telling us these lies/All we want at this point/ is air conditioning in our lives.”

The less printable lines are a mix of angst, anguish and sing-song profanity that—after nearly a week without power for some in the region—likely strike a chord with the “powerless” in and around DC and Maryland.

(Not to be upstaged by Pepco, BGE has won its share of irate customers, including Patch editor Doug Donovan, who earlier this week offered up tips on “.”)

The ode to Pepco, previously reported by the dcist blog, is by Katie Zacharkiw, Kelly Harris and Dwight Rundle, according to the description below the video. The trio goes by the name “Acoustic by Circumstance.”

Rundle’s Web site includes some demo versions of what appear to be original songs and the mention that he’s relatively new to town and apparently has played at an open mic at Ebeneezers coffee house on Capitol Hill. 

Serena Golden, whose Twitter account lists her as an associate editor at Inside Higher Ed, posted the video.

“My housemates, ‘Acoustic by Circumstance,’ wrote a little song about our experience with Pepco since the storm,” which devastated the DC, Maryland and Virginia area Friday night, she wrote.

The trio is scheduled to appear on the NBC4 network affiliate, according to one tweet on Twitter.

The video has generated the typical comments to which YouTube is prone. One of the less obscene portions of an otherwise profanity-laced screed said the song was full of “First-world problems.”

You can find the video here.

A word of warning: Tipper Gore would want the “Parental Advisory Explicit Lyrics” label all over this one. The lyrics are “not safe for work," for children or those with sensitive ears.