CANNED MUSIC.

CANNED MUSIC.
458.1

There’s a gramophone next door,
Cross the street are seven more.
And about the block I live in there must be at least two weoro
(I have counted twenty-four),
And they warble and they sing.
And they do most everything,
Ragtime, jagtime, band tunes, grand tunes,
Banjo tunes and highland sling:
And they cackle and they hoot
And they whistle and they toot
“Cavallera Rusticana.”
“Miserere,” “Carmen,” “Hannah,”
Everything you can think of played
in every sort of “mannah.”
Sleep’s entirely out of question,
It has spoiled my good digestion,
Edison be cursed forover, how can anybody praise
Dne who made that screechy business with its sleep disturoing ways?

We are living in a flat–
There is nothing strange in that-
But whenever we endeavor to engage in friendly chat,
There’s a gramophonie dla
Which comes floating loudly in
From below us and above us,
Drowing out the voices of us –
Stuff from “Johnny Jones” or “Wood- land,” arias from “Lohengrin,”
Shreds and patches of a tune Operatic, love or coon,
Slow or fast time, what & past time!
Under Underneath the silver moon.
George M. Cohan’s “Yankee Doodle,”
Mixed with “Traumerie” and such,
‘Till your poor bewadered noodle
Whirls and spins to heat the Dutch.
I would move, but that is useless,
it is hopeless to escape
For wherever I might wander I should meet that fearful shape,
Yes, and hear the strident tone
Of that measly gramophono!

There is just one cure I see,
And it don’t appeal to me,
But I think I’ll have to take it how- soever harsh it be.
It is this I’ll take my pelt
From the jar upon the shelf
And-oh fearful, fearful vengeance- buy a gramophone myself.
-Berton Braley.