The Music of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

I can't shut it off. I can't shut it off. Comes from someone's kitchen radio, comes from a car rumblin down the street. In an elevator goin up and comin down, in the supermarket aisle lookin at the chips. In the lobby of the medical center, in the dentist's waiting room. From a wide-screen TV in the house across the street. From somebody's earbuds on the bus ride into the city.

I'm hearin it now. I'm hearin it now. Hip-hop, pop, heavy metal, muzak. In the Port Authority it's a Mozart piano concerto, in the liquor store it's Dave Koz. At Dante's Pizzeria it's Jerry Vale. At the ballpark it's Neil Diamond. So good, so good, so good.

You can't escape it. You can't escape it. A commercial for pain-killers. Vivaldi. Pictures from the Hubble telescope. Strauss. Kiddie cartoons. Alan Menken. Someone's ringtones. Roger Miller. You turn on the computer you hear the chimes. You talk to a customer service rep and the Cincinnati Pops comes on. They're playin Too Short at Foot-Locker, Diana Krall at the dry cleaner. Down in Hoboken it's Sinatra Sinatra Sinatra. Up here it's the bootleg Dead. Help on the way.

It's the effin promise of springtime, it's the ladder to the moon. It's a brand new day, the look of love, and black coffee in bed. It's someone leavin on a jet plane, it's blue eyes cryin in the rain. It's something in the way she moves, the buffalo stance, a little red corvette, the windmills of your mind. It's that effin An die Freude comin out of a one-inch speaker. Don't know where or when.

Brain-damaged commentators claim it's The Soundtrack of Your Life. Whee! Whee! My life has a soundtrack!

Lemme tell you something, Mose, it ain't nothin but a singin commercial, tryin to sell you some flash. Take your perpetually agitated nervous system and yuck it up at the cash machine, darlin. Keep that dial spinnin, keep them ear-buds clean. Stay awake all night long.

Down at the car wash, it's Pancho Sanchez. Over at St. Anne's it's the Pangue Lingua. My teeth are sore and my neck is stiff. I can't shut it off and now God is dead. You got some pills I can take, poot?