As anyone who’s ever been forced to wait in the Centrelink phone queue (sometimes only to have the line drop out and have to start ALL OVER AGAIN) can attest, the organisation’s jaunty classical on-hold music, intended to soothe your frayed nerves, instead does the exact. fucking. opposite.
Those romantic piano sonatas that loop endlessly down your ear chasm as the minutes tick painfully by end up forming the soundtrack to your rapidly bubbling insanity, their inherent snootiness an unyielding reminder that you’re nothing but a povo squib whose inconsequential fate lies in the government’s (probably) jewel-adorned hands.
It’s the sound your phone-hand cramping up against your ear as you scream violently on the inside while staring down a fathomless black tunnel of time.
Thankfully, metal hero Stevic from Twelve Foot Ninja has teamed up with triple j to express this shared Australian experience through the art of song.
Faced with the challenge of covering C-Link’s infuriating “on-hold” music, Stevic went one better and composed lyrics that perfectly and hilariously encapsulate the zeitgeist of being forced to wait on the talky stick for hours on end as your urge to kill rises.
Watch his hilarious theatrical metal opus, which will no doubt resonate with Aussies stuck on the ‘Link for generations to come, below.
