What the song is about
The singer presses the power button, but the laptop screen stays black. The data is gone, the battery is empty and nothing happens. He checks the cable and turns the computer off and on, but it still doesn't work. He calls the store, listens to boring hold music and loses his patience. Finally a friendly man answers and gives the classic tech-support advice: pull the plug, wait a bit and try again.
Useful words and expressions
- press the button: push the power button to switch something on.
- the screen is black / the screen is dead: nothing shows on the display.
- lose data / I want it back: your files are gone and you want them again.
- check the cable, plug it in: connect a device to power.
- pull the plug: disconnect it from the power socket.
- turn it off / turn it on: switch it off and on.
- the power is gone: there is no electricity in the device.
- repair: fixing something that is broken.
- operator: the person who answers the phone at a company.
- it is a bore: it is boring.
- waste (my precious) time: use time badly, for nothing.
- way too slow: informal for much too slow.
- assist: a formal word for help.
- give up the ghost: an idiom meaning that a machine has stopped working for good (it can also mean die).
- raise my hands up in the air: a gesture of frustration or giving up.
Grammar
- Present simple for a series of actions: I check the cable, I plug it in, I try to start it. The singer tells the story step by step, as if it is happening now.
- Negatives with doesn't: It doesn't work (he/she/it + doesn't + base verb, not it don't work).
- Phrasal verbs with pronouns: plug it in, turn it off, turn it on. With a pronoun, the pronoun goes in the middle. Say turn it off, never turn off it.
- Present perfect: My computer has given up the ghost. The result is important now: the computer is broken.
- Imperatives for instructions: Please wait a minute, Just pull the plug, tell me...
- will + if: I will assist you if I can is a polite offer.
- Question word + to-infinitive: Where to begin? is a short way of saying Where should I begin?
Careful: lines bent for the rhyme
- Please stay on line rhymes with time. On the phone people say stay on the line or hold the line. Online means on the internet.
- I need repair rhymes with air. It is more natural to say it needs repairing, I need it repaired or I need a repair service.
- My patience drops, it hurts the most is an unusual phrase. People normally say I'm losing my patience or I'm running out of patience.
- The battery is empty is understandable, but people usually say the battery is dead (or flat in British English).
- Tell me if you fixed it: a support agent would more likely say tell me if that fixed it or tell me if it works now.