I’m sitting in a hospital bed in Germany after an unfortunate fall on some stairs that left me with broken ribs and a ruptured spleen, but quite a bit of time. This was during a tour, and naturally I had to cancel all the remaining shows and rearrange flights home, which I’m working on today, or should be. I’m doing a lot better, by the way, and am due to be released today.
I quickly felt solidarity with people in the US right now, who are all rebooking travel because of air traffic control-related flight cancellations. We’re all spending a fair amount of time on hold. I don’t know if I’m the first person to get a new IV put in my arm while on hold with Lufthansa; I’m probably not.
This brings me to the subject of hold music. It’s always interesting (at least for the first 10 minutes) to hear what direction various companies choose to go with their hold music choices. Some opt for generic smooth-jazzy sounds, with melodies that aren’t necessarily familiar. Some give it the full elevator music treatment, with heavily watered-down instrumental versions of pop classics. United Airlines has gone the classy route and uses a famous passage from George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. That was Gershwin’s jazz-influenced classical work, composed in the early ’20s. George Gershwin’s brother Ira—who I’m pretty sure was the mandolin-playing tenor singer of the duo—was the lyricist of their co-written songs, so he had nothing to do with Rhapsody in Blue. In any case, I appreciate United’s more complex musical choice, which they actually licensed and still use in safety announcements, commercials, and other branding efforts. I like the use of something less bland while I’m waiting to deal with a cancelled flight from O’Hare. Some might argue, though, that using the same hold music for 38 years is a little extreme, and that at some point they might consider switching to Leaving on a Jet Plane, I’ll Fly Away, or He Went to Sleep and the Hogs Ate Him (just as a reminder that there are worse things in life than missing a plane connection).
Is hold music a missed bluegrass opportunity? Surely we have all sorts of songs that would be good for a variety of businesses that didn’t hire enough phone operators to do the job. If we don’t move on this, this will very soon be the domain of AI, in which some unmusical suit in an Atlanta high rise office building just asks Chat GPT to create “a bland pop instrumental that evokes a growing sense of frustration.”
I’ve already mentioned I’ll Fly Away as possible airline hold music. Here are some other options for a range of businesses worth considering:
Harold’s Mortuary — Bury Me Beneath the Willow
Dermatology Associates — Rawhide
Wells Fargo Bank — Jimmy Martin & The Osborne Brothers’ Save it! Save It!
Outdoor Sports Outlet — Matterhorn
Discount Hardware Superstore — Take This Hammer
Obstetrics Specialists — Blue Highway’s Born With a Hammer in My Hand
Darlene’s Dance Studio — Jimmy Martin’s Skip Hop and Wobble
West Side Couples Therapy — Ruby Are You Mad?; alternative — Are You Tired of Me My Darling?
Good Scents Perfume and Cologne — Rank Stranger
Vintage Navigation Systems & Travel — I’m Using My Bible For a Roadmap
Roscoe’s Loan and Check Cashing — Long Journey Home, a.k.a. Lost All My Money But a Two Dollar Bill
FastGrowingTrees .com — Tall Pines
Uber — Bringing Mary Home
Uber Eats — Who’s That Knockin’ At My Door
Sunnyside Budget Assisted Living — Over the Hills to the Poorhouse
Cardiology Partners — Please Search Your Heart
And finally . . .
Uncle Bill’s House of Demijohns — Hot Corn Cold Corn
