Elevator Music

Jimmy was on a mission. A fact-finding mission. And The White Swallow on the high street looked like a good place to start. Mainly because of the rainbow flag fluttering under the pub’s name sign, and the promise of “KARAOKEEEEEEE TONIGHT!” scrawled in multicolour on a flier in the window. 

Being a ghost, search engines were off-limits for Jimmy. What would have been a few keyboard clicks for the living became a major operation for the non-corporeal dead. But Jimmy enjoyed the challenge – it gave him the chance to flex some journalistic research skills that he hadn’t put to use in a long while. And not just since he’d been dead. For the last few years of his life, research had been co-opted by Google and AI, with their promise of speed trumping anything as piffling as accuracy.

But accuracy was essential now, if he was to help out his new friend back at the Carlton Park Hotel. 

Plus, being one of a small number of ghosts who could wander where they liked, Jimmy felt an obligation to help any unluckier tethered souls he encountered. And it gave him something to do. Death could be pretty dull most of the time.

As Jimmy approached the main door he could already hear that Thursday night karaokeeeeeee was in full swing. Someone was belting out an Erasure track he half recognised, just about audible over the hubbub of the crowd.

He walked through the pub door – literally – and the place was packed, a wall-to-wall kaleidoscopic carnival of camp, exuberant queens rubbing shoulders with barely-dressed gym bunnies, Hey Mamas, elfin twinks and smoky-eyed femmes. 

A cute young guy with a platinum crew-cut and jeans that threatened to cut off the blood supply to his (clearly visible, and quite considerable) manhood was cavorting behind the mic; it was an awkward half-dancing kind of cavort that allowed him to keep his eyes fixed intently on the screen feeding him the lyrics. Some of the crowd were dancing along; others were jeering.

This was perfect. Jimmy suspected he wouldn’t have to wait long.

He walked to the performance area (you couldn’t really call it a stage) and stood where he could see the lyrics being displayed. Next up, a severe-looking drag queen gave “I Want To Break Free” a Dietrich-style makeover. That went down a storm. Next, someone murdered Cher’s “Believe”. After that, “I Am What I Am”, “It’s Raining Men” and “All The Lovers”. All the classics. But not THE classic.

Eventually a shy-looking guy with a quiff like Hokusai’s Great Wave delivered the goods. With the first few lines, delivered with the confidence and poise of a seasoned diva, the crowd hushed, tense with anticipation. Then the room exploded as the beat kicked in. Jimmy punched the air. He would have been embarrassed if anyone could have seen him.

Jimmy waited for the second verse, made a mental note when the linecr he’d come for appeared on the screen, and then – giving the pub a chef’s kiss on his way out – hurried back to the Carlton Park Hotel, repeating the words over and over.

***

“It’s ‘chained-up little person’,” blurted Jimmy as he stepped back into the hotel lift, as if he hadn’t taken a breath since he left the pub (though ghosts don’t breathe, of course).

“Yes, that’s it! You’re right!” cried Rhea, the ghost tethered to the lift. “It had just totally gone out of my head! Thank you, thank you so much, it’s been really pissing me off.”

“My pleasure.”

And so they waited, enduring the bland plinky-plink playlist of elevator music as the lift transported various hotel patrons between different floors.

Finally, the familiar opening piano arpeggio trickled from the tinny speaker. 

Rhea grinned. “Here we go!”

And she began singing: “Once I was afraid…”

Now this, thought Jimmy, is going to be the showstopper of the night.

© Dave Golder 2025

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