WHO KILLED MUSIC? SIDE-B

every chair is a debt

The B-side answers from the empty chair: every seat at the table was paid for by somebody who stood up first.

"Who killed music? Take a chair.

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WHO KILLED MUSIC? SIDE-B lyrics

Artist-supplied lyric sheet, matched by title. The sheet may differ from this released performance. Production notes and alternate promotional cuts are omitted.

Read the lyric sheet

Intro

Chairs scraped. Room filled. Nobody shook a hand. Eight sat down. One chair short. Everybody counted.

Verse 1

Voice took the head chair. No mic, no wire, no proof. "I filled a hall on one lung when the hall had no roof." Wood dragged a black case in, bad weather on the collar, tuned one string flat, the whole floor leaned in to follow. Edison's wax rolled up on a cart. Hand crank. Brass bell. "One take outlives the man." Wood said, "The man can't tell." Victrola played the room back. Same room. Nobody's palm. Voice looked at his own two hands. Voice kept them calm. Nineteen twenty-nine. Vitaphone lit the Broadway marquee. Local 802 counted the pit: thirty players down to three. Voice said nothing that night. Voice had a check guaranteed. Wood said nothing that night. Wood had a session Wednesday. One horn stayed shut in its case by the coat rack, tag still tied. Nobody moved it. Nobody asked. Everybody signed.

Chorus

Who killed music? Take a chair. Somebody stood up so you could sit there. Who killed music? Nobody yet. Every chair at this table is a debt.

Verse 2

Technics rolled in on a cart, dust packed in the felt, cut two bars off a break till the two bars built a belt. "I made the Bronx out of eight seconds of drum." Wood said, "Thief." Technics said, "Then name him. Name one." Room went quiet. Room went back to the plates and the ice. Roland walked in cold. No case, no clasp, no price. Kicked an eight oh eight so low the water moved twice, and the drummer at the far end stood up and left his sticks. Nobody carried his kit. Nobody held the door. SP laid two seconds down like a card on the floor. "Twelve bits, one snare, one hiss, and I own the decade." Roland said, "Fake." SP said, "You was fake first. You got paid." Then a laptop opened a room the size of a jaw, put Nashville in a basement in Ohio with one bar. Pitch fix came in last, a mirror sewn in the sleeve, and Voice heard his own young voice come out of that machine.

Chorus

Who killed music? Take a chair. Somebody stood up so you could sit there. Who killed music? Nobody yet. Every chair at this table is a debt.

Verse 3

Door opened late. The name card had two letters on it. No chair left over. It stood at the coat rack, quiet. Whole table stood up at once and the whole table yelled, "YOU ARE GOING TO KILL MUSIC." The light fixture held. Roland didn't say fake. Roland didn't say a thing. It looked at Technics one time. Technics looked at the ring on his own hand, then said, "Sixty nine. Scale. Forty two flat. Four bars, a Memphis basement, August. I ate thirty years off that. Never sent the man a dollar. Never learned his last name. His daughter wrote me once." Room stayed exactly the same. Nobody voted. Nobody went and found a chair to bring in. The head chair moved down one place. Then they all moved down again.