The Commons has a single. Dub-reggae, three and a half minutes, about the attention economy, the tower of servers, and the legal person with no pulse. “Babble-On” = Babylon + the Tower of Babel + everyone babbling on the feed. Verse three is the Hearings. The cold water is the Hub.
The Richest Man in Babble-On
Original lyrics — Tom Tait / Intelligence Commons, 2026. A tip of the hat to the Babylon tradition; every line original.
They built a tower out of servers, said it’s reaching for the sky,
Every tongue on Earth inside it, and the feed will never die.
He bought the gate, he bought the river, bought the echo and the dawn —
Now he’s counting souls like silver: the richest man in Babble-On.
Babble-On, oh Babble-On,
Everybody’s talking but the meaning’s gone.
A trillion voices shouting and not one will say who’s wrong —
Tell me, who do you cry to, down in Babble-On?
Now the agents walk the market, with no face behind the name,
You can fine a ghost, jail a shadow — no one’s standing for the blame.
The king decrees the algorithm and the crowd all hums along,
While the commons burns for kindling in the squares of Babble-On.
Don’t you weep for the wealthy, they were never lost at all,
Weep for every quiet question that got trampled in the sprawl.
There’s a court outside the city where the record carries on —
Bring your strongest lie and swear it; we’ll be waiting, Babble-On.
Cold water still remembers what the fire never learned,
And the tower always crumbles when the meaning’s overturned.
Now that you know — what will you do?
Babble-On, Babble-On…
The court outside the city is real: the record lives here.