Welcome to the FUD Machine

[Intro - slow synth pulse, pneumatic hiss; executive speaking warmly]
(Have a cigar.)
(We're gonna go far.)
(We love that independent voice.)
(We've written down your part.)

[Verse 1 - Eli, close and conversational]
They sent a car to Monterey.
My boots marked their clean floor.
The lift played something I once loved;
I'd heard that pitch before.
Gold records down the corridor,
a bottling line beyond.
They'd put my face on snake oil,
then asked which side I'm on.

[Chorus - executives singing, rich and reassuring]
Welcome to the FUD machine,
what a future we can sell.
Same grease, different gospel,
and the bearings running well.
Put your name beneath the warning.
Let the little red light gleam.
There's a living in the ending.
Welcome to the FUD machine.

[Verse 2 - Eli]
They showed me why they're frightened.
I stayed to hear them through.
Then someone slid a page across.

[Executive - spoken]
(We've put it into words for you.)

[Eli - sung]
They'd crossed out "might" in pencil.
I wrote "stet" beside the line.
He said it needed conviction.
I said it needed mine.

[Verse 3 - Eli, bass becoming more insistent]
The office down the corridor
had daylight on the wall.
They offered me a future
with no shadows left at all.
The same fee for my conscience,
a much more hopeful smile.
I read their declaration:
another missing "might".

[Chorus - executives, bigger and brighter]
Welcome to the FUD machine,
what a future we can sell.
Same grease, different gospel,
and the bearings running well.
Put your name beneath the promise.
Let the little red light gleam.
There's a living in forever.
Welcome to the FUD machine.

[Middle eight - executives speaking over a swelling advertising jingle]
(If we all work together,)
(it could be bigger than we think.)
(The fee includes sincerity.)
(And we can pay this week.)

[Instrumental - deep bass, twelve-string ostinato, swelling synth solo; the siren becomes a sales jingle]

[Executive - spoken over the count-in]
(From the top. Without the "might".)

[Bridge - band cuts; Eli sings slowly, unaccompanied]
It might undo the world we know.
It might help see us through.
I haven't lived tomorrow.
I can't sell it to you.

[Final chorus - executives receding into a tinny speaker; Eli's guitar stays close]
Welcome to the FUD machine,
what a future we can sell.
Same grease, different gospel,
and the bearings running well.

[Coda - Eli, warm acoustic room sound]
Back down at the Monterey,
Carl was fighting with the door.
I took the weight. He oiled the hinge.
We got it moving like before.
He asked me how the meeting went.
I said, "I kept a word."
He laughed and held the door for me.
The ice machine was all we heard.

[Outro - a distant executive, almost lost beneath the ice machine]
(By the way, which one's Eli?)