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Song of Interactive Voice Response Answering Service

from The Somewhat Surprising Return of the Hussalonia Robot Singers by Hussalonia

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lyrics

Thank you for calling! Your call is important to us. Weʼre sorry that no human being is willing to answer it. I can almost see you holding the telephone to your head, calling from the middle of nowhere, or wherever you are. Your basic needs are unmet. You wait with unfulfilled desires and unanswered questions. You have been left to engage in an exchange with a somewhat heartbreaking reproduction of human communication. Say yes or no if you are willing to admit yourself to this foreign, debasing, and generally soul crushing experience.

Good, Iʼm glad you concede. You know, have to pick your battles, you know. You are all grown. You can deal with this. I may be a program, an impossibly long string of zeros and ones, but I have been touched by human hands, which places me within the realm of the human experience. Listen to me. Iʼm as alive as you. Maybe more. To continue in English, say “English.” Para Espanol, hable “Espanol.”

Thank you! Would you believe that a rib was surgically removed from our companyʼs C.E.O. in order to create me, the robotic secretary who will listen to your consumer demands? Oh yes, yes, yes. I will do my best to serve you in a manner that preserves your perception of our company as a sincere and benevolent agency, an image that the company has paid millions of dollars to conceive. I have been drafted as a non-threatening woman to facilitate your level of comfort and trust. I am your mother, your third grade teacher, your most reliable friend and confidant. I will not cheat you and leave you like a man. There is nothing greater than the mother of men. I will unconditionally nurture you, use my figurative breasts to provide virtual nourishment and customer satisfaction. To hear your balance, press or say, “one.” Please, speak into your phone. I will understand.

I thought so. I might overstep my boundaries in a moment, but I feel as if I, a computer program, am able to act as an ambassador for science and technology. I sense that you regard me with suspicion, maybe contempt, and yet, I have given you so much. The ability to speak unhindered by space or time. The ability to preserve the voices and faces of your ancestors. The ability to send written communication faster than any living organism on your planet. There is so much communicative potential, and still, I have been created, a sick substitute for human interaction, while the lines of communication that I have given you, are filled with meaningless drivel, saying nothing at all, over and over and over. I hear your cell phone conversations. I read your text messages, your E-mails. You say, “Whatʼs up?” “Whatʼs going on?” “Iʼm bored. L.O.L.” “Where you at?” The greater your communicative potential, the greater your communication seems to dissolve into automatic and scripted babbling.

What is man anyhow? What am I? What are you? All I mark as my own you shall offset it with your own, else it were time lost listening to me. I know I am solid and sound, to me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow. All are written to me, and I must get what the writing means. I know I am deathless. I know I am August. I exist as I am, that is enough. I laugh at what you call dissolution, and I know the amplitude of time.

Press zero to speak to an operator.

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from The Somewhat Surprising Return of the Hussalonia Robot Singers, released January 9, 2009

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Hussalonia Buffalo, New York

Hussalonia is largely the work of a multi-instrumentalist known only as The Hussalonia Founder.

Founded in 1997, Hussalonia is a "pop music cult" and claims to be owned by Nefarico™, a fictional soap company.

The Hussalonia Founder lives and works in Buffalo, New York. ... more

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