When Cash Was King

Album: not on an album (2023)
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Songfacts®:

  • Lisa O'Neill warns about the perils of living in a cashless society in this tune, which was inspired by a trip to London where her cash couldn't even buy her a bottle of water at a hotel.

    "They wouldn't accept my cash, and I was a resident at the hotel," she recalled in a 2023 Songfacts interview. "I thought, Wow, so if I don't have a mobile phone or bank account in London today, does that mean I can't buy a bottle of water? That's huge. Cash is so important. It's a fundamental part of our independence. My feeling is, if we depend on the machine to mind all our finances and everything has to run through that system and that model, someday the button might break. If all systems go down, where will we be without our stash of cash?"
  • The lyrics reference the UK's King Charles III, who took the throne after Queen Elizabeth II's death in 2022. O'Neill argues with the robots that refuse her money at a coffee shop, singing:

    I earned my money honestly, it sports your Queen
    But we're a cashless company and Charles is King
  • Not long after it was written, O'Neill performed this during a show in Brooklyn on April 28, 2023.
  • O'Neill also released her fifth studio album, All Of This Is Chance, in 2023. Peaking at #6 on the Irish Albums chart, it's her highest-charting release in her homeland.

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