Elevator Music

Elevator music
The sound of what’s wrong

In small rooms rising and falling
The sound of what’s wrong

In offices 
The sound of what’s wrong

These songs used to be actual songs
Now they’re the sound of what’s wrong

(In the restrooms the workers come and go
humming along to fake Coolio)

Someone likely my age who likely looks like me
takes raw music and polishes the edges off

Puts together a soundtrack
made for maximum uplift

and boost to productivity
or to calm a jittery rider

(man who isn’t a jittery rider right now?)
Isn’t it lovely instead to hear

something soft and pointless
and harmless and clear

(while back in the toilet they come and go
pissing and pooping to something slow)

Sound of something wrong
made comfortable so you don’t have to be 

uncomfortable
rising from street level to penthouse

or falling slowly but certainly
from penthouse to street level

What instruments are being played
Why is no one ever singing

These used to be real songs
They contained real people

Used to be sung now and then at least
Sometimes conveyed real feeling

(while in the hallways the sleepers come and go
stumbling along to Curtis Blow)

Elevator music
the sound of something wrong

No one knows anything about it
Songs used to be

full of fire and bad notes and grit
but in the elevator or the doctor’s chair

we don’t have a second thought 
we lie back and take it

and later we fall from on high
to watered down Clash on invisible speakers

and are not the least bit ashamed
It’s the sound after all of everything wrong

and who would debate that 
everything is wrong

meet the new moss 
same as the old moss

growing on the gangster
paradigm

all we wanna do is have some fun
lost in the supermarket

forgetting the words
as we shop

and the streets that bore it all for us
fall to riot and killing

but thanks to elevator music
we never have to hear about that