“I’ve Lost My Free Will, And Now You’re Trying To Give Me A Lollipop”

      From the Washington Post:

Brace yourself before you call the Social Security Administration, as several million people do each month.
The average wait time is 68.9 minutes.
On the line, your experience will consist of a repeated 5-minute segment of announcements and better-than-usual hold music.

Go ahead, listen. Don’t worry, you can take yourself off hold at any time. …

Because the internet can still be a place that connects you to your curiosity, some people go in search of the full song and its lyrics that float over the melody.  …

Imagine that — a piece of music that breaks free in small ways from our DOGE-enhanced existence. So we went to East Harlem to meet the musician behind it and played him the Social Security hold loop, on speaker.

“That’s horrible!” David D’Alessio howled. He sat with his face in his hands, at his kitchen table.
It was the first time he heard his song — his life’s credo — used as off-the-shelf hold music.
 He felt trapped, imagining himself as a caller. “I feel like I’m being punished,” D’Alessio said. “I’ve lost my free will, and now you’re trying to give me a lollipop.”

D’Alessio, 54, is an independent musician who put out three albums during a career of over 30 years.  …

He was 35 and had just had a bad breakup. “I was pretty dark about what I was doing, where I was going, who I was,” D’Alessio said, “You know ... the whole nine.” He was stuck.
That’s when “Throw Yourself In Front of It” emerged. First came the melody — the same one piped through millions of phones now. … 

By 2014, he figured it was time to make money from “Throw Yourself in Front of It.” D’Alessio recorded an instrumental version with drums, bass and layers of vocals. That was posted online in a music catalogue for purchase, as the company writes, by “visionary music supervisors in TV, film and advertising.”  As copyright lawyers would put it: the use of D’Alessio’s instrumental version was offered online, non-exclusively, in perpetuity, to anyone who would pay an up-front licensing fee. …