BGP - a song all about the worldwide Internet routing protocol we all have come to know and love and tolerate :)

a parody of "O.P.P." by Naughty by Nature - also available on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RT-1DU33xIk

Lyrics (by popular demand):

Yeah! They say we make the Internet go, right? Well, check it! I wanna tell y'all a little bit about how we do it. You see, on the Internet, "OPP" stands for Other People's Packets. And we got something that makes sure they get where they're trying to go. BT, drop a node on 'em!

BGP, how can I explain it? I take it frame-by-frame it
(wait, that's Layer 2... sorry)
GP, Gateway Protocol, actin' sleazy
but the B? well, that's not that easy, huh
It's like that thing you cannot cross without a passport
and Taco Bell will make you wanna run for it, yeah
Before you think I'm making jokes, I'm not referring to a toilet
I guess I gotta say it and spoil it - run it
You ever fail to send a message on the Internet?
You hit a site, you wonder why it hasn't loaded yet?
You 404, you think your Firefox has flown the coop?
You do a trace and then you notice there's a routing loop?
It's not a Cisco E to the I to the G to the R to the P
It's just your route reflector died (with no redundancy!)
It's BGP, the World Wide Web is all about it
There's no room for adjacencies, there's just room to ROUTE IT!
How many people got a phone without a data plan?
How many people live their life like all the Amish can?
Well if you do then you don't need the Internet at all
But otherwise, here's your protocol

You down with BGP? (Yeah you know me!)
You down with BGP? (Yeah you know me!)
You down with BGP? (Yeah you know me!)
Who's down with BGP? (Every ISP!)
You down with BGP? (Yeah you know me!)
You down with BGP? (Yeah you know me!)
You down with BGP? (Yeah you know me!)
Who's down with BGP? (All ISP's!)

As for the techies, BGP is so terrific
The letters are all the same, but in depth, it's something different
It's the standard, worldwide, the universal method
TCP 179, that's the port you can expect it
No need to spit minutiae like information hoarders
Let's say the B in BGP stands for Border
Now here's a keepalive - send the keepalive back to me
Now we're established
Have you ever been troubleshooting and your neighbor's not receiving routes?
Your export policy sends your entire table out
They need capacity so they just up and add a node
You never turned on multihop because you didn't know
A massive outage for your customers would then ensue
The neighbor ISP then tried to blame it all on you
Your boss was livid and he banned you from the telco POP
But not before you proved exactly why the routing dropped
You changed the settings and you fixed it when you bounced the port
Say "BGP!" (BGP!) I say it with a snort
Now in the future make sure your config is never whack
You're now down with your job back

You down with BGP? (Yeah you know me!)
You down with BGP? (Yeah you know me!)
You down with BGP? (Yeah you know me!)
Who's down with BGP? (Every CCIE!)
You down with BGP? (Yeah you know me!)
You down with BGP? (Yeah you know me!)
You down with BGP? (Yeah you know me!)
Who's down with BGP? (All the techies!)

They're tryin' to take us off BGP
Right now in Congress they're debating legislation that would change the whole Internet
And now the people disagreein', yeah, we arguin'
We're sending vitriolic letters from our apartment - run it!
See, that's the thing, it must have been the way they strike at freedom
Or how they're voting on these bills before they even read 'em
Their politicking's all influenced by the highest bid
So they can lock us up for more than Dr. Murray get
He gave MJ the propofol that killed the King of Pop
They found him guilty, he got four years serving in the drop
You do a tribute cover wishing he was still alive
The record labels call the cops, they sentence you to five!
The corporations' private money's what they're all about
The business models they protect, we need to throw them out
Once on the road to censorship, there is no turning back
So BoingBoing, Wikipedia, and Reddit black
Amazing, isn't it? Yeah, we can put an end to this
We already got some of them changing up their positions
So keep fighting, 'cause we're not done yet
So we can surf BGP all over the 'Net

You down with BGP? (Yeah you know me!)
You down with BGP? (Yeah you know me!)
You down with BGP? (Yeah you know me!)
Who's down with BGP? (21st century!)
You down with BGP? (Yeah you know me!)
You down with BGP? (Yeah you know me!)
You down with BGP? (Yeah you know me!)
Who's down with BGP? (All society!)

Yeah. Contact your legislators. Tell them that shelving SOPA and PIPA and ACTA is not enough. Tell them you want those bills gone. The future of the Internet as we know it is at stake. Don't let it be destroyed.