Songs: Stick To The Agenda

notes / gigs / releases

Your frequent flights of fancy
Are I'm sure a great delight
In the cafes and the salons you frequent
But I could live without the story
Of your cousin's neighbour's cat
In a meeting about stationary procurement

Professionally, politely
Might I ask you to stop talking
Please respect the meeting etiquette
Whatever race or class or gender
Can we all kindly remember
To stick to the Agenda

Yes computers can be difficult
But maybe google it
Before regaling the Estates Team with your passwords
And I'm sure that it was tasty
But the cake you baked last Wednesday
Does not need to be minuted by the clerk

Now you've raised a valid issue
Which we already discussed
Back when you were monologuing about babies
The chances of success are slender
But I'll still ask you to remember
To stick to the agenda

And now you're telling us
You're busy with so many meetings
And that they all seem to go on forever
If I could get a word in
Then I might dare to suggest
They'd be shorter if you stuck to the agenda

The Agenda
The Agenda
They'd be shorter if you stuck to the agenda
The Agenda
The Agenda
Please will you stick to the agenda

This is not your Netflix Special
Nor your new one person show
If it was then it would only last an hour
I've a feeling I'll be leaving
This interminable meeting
Only when my mind or laptop's drained of power

Professionally, politely
Might I ask you to stop talking
Please respect the meeting etiquette
Whatever race or class or gender
Can we all kindly remember
To stick to the Agenda

The Agenda
The Agenda
Please please stick to the Agenda
The Agenda
The Agenda
Please will you stick to the agenda
Please please stick to the agenda

Published by Wipe Out Music Publishing

This one's born out of many MANY many meetings that I've gone to over the years, where Senior People spend ages nattering on together about whatever comes into their heads while approx 700 other members of staff sit around listening, and then complain that nobody has enough time to do anything. "Yes", I always think, "that is partly because you have just wasted a whole hour (TIMES 700 PEOPLE) telling us your entirely non-unusual thoughts about The Government/Eating Out/How Computers Work/OTHER". It's ESPECIALLY infuriating when it happens in one of those comparatively rare meetings where everyone actually needs to come to a decision and it's going Quite Well until aforesaid TYPES tune in and take the WHOLE discussion back to the start because they haven't been listening and/or want to make it look like it was all their idea.

It's quite annoying!

Recording this one was FUN for two reasons. Firstly because I managed to transpose the Fairly Fiddly guitar part onto a MIDI piano and have it sound quite nice, and secondly because I managed to work out how to have a MIDI track SPEED UP gently throughout. When I wrote the song I always sped up A LOT as I went along and wanted to have that in the final version, but it took a significant of work to make it happen. I THINK I managed to do it fairly subtly, but it still sounds ODD how slow it is at the start!