They bought up the bands first.
Every half-bit guitarist with some ripped
denim clothing jumped at the chance
to have more than bus fare to the next gig.
They bought up the bands and they
turned them into Spam.
Canned meat that is meant never to expire,
meant to be shipped to islands all over the world,
large and small.
Packaged, processed, made of who knows what.
It says what on the can, on the band, sure.
After all, who’s ever met a label that couldn’t be
doctored or fudged or a flat-out lie?
They bought up the music and the music flowed,
heavy with propaganda pollutants,
and we all changed our minds.
Our minds were worn as riverbeds are worn
as the music flowed through like a river flows through.
And the smokes we smoked were the smokes they smoked,
industry-purchased, paper-wrapped cancers.
And the shares went higher and the music played louder
and the bad that was turned worse
until everything turned from flowing to forcing
and the music was the ocean, large and terrible and murderous,
with things deeper and darker lurking beneath.
They bought up the bands and the music
and they wiggled their music-wedge into
the doorway of the tube, the telly, the tv, the idiot box.
After all, what’s so big a leap that the ocean of
the machine that is industry-music can’t manage?
They bought up the music, they converted us.
They bought up the television, they led us by the nose
like ducklings, like lemmings.
They made us believe in art, believe in something
with lead-based paint covering the ***-metal caricature
of something that had been, long long ago,
but which never was, not truly.
Politics is pervasive, and politics pushes through.
The biggest stack pushes the players around,
makes the little guy fold even if he’s got a royal flush.
Because the biggest stack bought the half-bit guitarists
and the music and the television and all of us, bit by bit.
The biggest stacks have been buying us, every one.
And each of us has chosen sides, multiple sides,
because we don’t know what we’re fighting for,
but we know we’re fighting and we know we’re being bought.
It’s a difficult war we’re all fighting, alone and together.
A difficult series of seemingly pointless battles,
and we’re being bought and sold all the while.
But isn’t it nice to be wanted.