THE BALLADE OF EASY LISTENING
Don’t tell me that it’s now all past,
stretched on our generation’s rack,
and though you must recall the cast
(Morgana King, Roberta Flack)
it’s farewell pap and welcome cack,
with so much AM radio
selling out to vox pop yack
where’d all that easy listening go?
Oh why obliterate James Last
or Andy Williams track by track?
‘Softly please and not so fast…
after this message we’ll be back…’
And so they soothed through palace, shack:
unobtrusive, beige, mel-low.
With little now but thumping thwack
where’d all that easy listening go
which played it bland yet unsurpassed?
Well look out here’s that corporate hack
(tin-eared, philistined, half-arsed)
who had the gall to give the sack
to Mancini, Bacharach.
Oh Mr and Mrs Average Joe
who’s ‘up to here’ with techno-tack,
where’d all that easy listening go?
You neither seem a punk on crack
nor some rapper’s erstwhile bro:
I mean it Babe, please tell me Mack:
where’d all that easy listening go?
From These Things Are Real
Don’t tell me that it’s now all past,
stretched on our generation’s rack,
and though you must recall the cast
(Morgana King, Roberta Flack)
it’s farewell pap and welcome cack,
with so much AM radio
selling out to vox pop yack
where’d all that easy listening go?
Oh why obliterate James Last
or Andy Williams track by track?
‘Softly please and not so fast…
after this message we’ll be back…’
And so they soothed through palace, shack:
unobtrusive, beige, mel-low.
With little now but thumping thwack
where’d all that easy listening go
which played it bland yet unsurpassed?
Well look out here’s that corporate hack
(tin-eared, philistined, half-arsed)
who had the gall to give the sack
to Mancini, Bacharach.
Oh Mr and Mrs Average Joe
who’s ‘up to here’ with techno-tack,
where’d all that easy listening go?
You neither seem a punk on crack
nor some rapper’s erstwhile bro:
I mean it Babe, please tell me Mack:
where’d all that easy listening go?
From These Things Are Real