(or: forty to seventy, every Tuesday) [Intro — horn stab, upstroke ska guitar, bouncy drum, immediately fun] [Verse 1 — fast, pointed, almost conversational] Every Tuesday morning walking past the high street Past the newsagent with two, past the chemist with three Past the shoe shop with nobody, past the café with four And then sixty-odd disciples at the white glass door Forty on a slow day, seventy when it's peak All voluntarily standing in the same white cheek-to-cheek Of a room designed by someone who really loves the colour Of compliance, of surrender, of a life made a little duller And I'd stop and do the maths every single time One shop, sixty people, none of them a crime But something in the ratio made my brain do a skip Like watching gravity work wrong on a Tuesday trip [Pre-Chorus — horns climbing] Because the newsagent had two And the pharmacy had three And the rest of the street Was just people being free But the white room had sixty Standing in the glow Of a logo on the wall That they'd pay anything to know [Chorus — full band, everyone joins in, horn stabs on every beat] Forty to seventy every week In the white room, in the white room Forty to seventy cheek to cheek In the white room, white room One shop, sixty people, every other shop has three What exactly is it selling that they're lining up to see They'll hold two tin cans for it They'll queue overnight for it They'll give everything they own for it Just to be In the white room [Verse 2 — slightly more specific, the Scientology parallel enters] Somewhere across the city in another kind of white Another sixty people getting clearer in the light Of an e-meter reading and a level they just bought At five hundred dollars an hour for the progress that it brought Same colour walls, same colour smile, same colour of the cost Same way of explaining that what you had before was lost Before you found the system, before you found the way Before you understood that you'd be paying every day And I'm walking past both buildings on my Tuesday morning route And I'm doing the same maths and arriving at the same doubt About the ratio, the density, the sixty in the white And the rest of the street just living in the ordinary light [Pre-Chorus] The chemist has the medicine The newsagent has the news The shoe shop has the options And you get to pick your shoes But the white room has the answer And the answer has a price And the price goes up each level And they'll tell you that it's nice [Chorus] Forty to seventy every week In the white room, in the white room Forty to seventy cheek to cheek In the white room, white room One shop, sixty people, every other shop has three What exactly is it selling that they're lining up to see They'll hold two tin cans for it They'll queue overnight for it They'll give everything they own for it Just to be In the white room [Bridge — half time, almost spoken, the horns drop out, just bass and drum] I worked it out eventually What the white rooms have in common What makes sixty people stand Where three would stand elsewhere It's not the product It's not the service It's not the technology It's not the spiritual advancement It's the sixty The sixty is the product You walk in and there's sixty people And sixty people can't be wrong Can they [beat drops back in, horns return, faster than before] Can they [Verse 3 — fastest verse, rattling through the specific absurdities] One of them invented a religion with a voltmeter and some cans One of them charges thirty bucks for cables with their plans One of them says you were haunted by a spacelord's frozen dead One of them says a file explorer's for advanced users instead One of them will disconnect you from your family if you leave One of them will make your old phone slow so you'll believe That you need the new one, need the next one, need the tier above And both of them will tell you that the product is called love But love don't cost a billion-year contract to be signed And love don't throttle last year's model to remind You that the exit's always open but it costs you everything And sixty people in a white room is a very specific thing [Final Chorus — maximum, horns screaming, everyone on the gang vocal] FORTY TO SEVENTY EVERY WEEK IN THE WHITE ROOM, IN THE WHITE ROOM FORTY TO SEVENTY CHEEK TO CHEEK IN THE WHITE ROOM, WHITE ROOM ONE SHOP, SIXTY PEOPLE, EVERY OTHER SHOP HAS THREE AND I WALKED PAST EVERY TUESDAY AND I NEVER COULD AGREE THAT THE TIN CANS WERE WORTH IT THAT THE CABLE WAS WORTH IT THAT THE SIXTY IN THE WHITE ROOM WERE AS FREE AS THEY BELIEVED THEMSELVES TO BE [Outro — horns winding down, almost conversational, one voice] The newsagent had two The chemist had three The shoe shop had nobody And I kept walking [final horn stab, silence]
