For the past couple of years, our on-hold message has been a collection of random Park&Co thoughts, facts and meandering opinions. But since most of our callers are now intimately familiar with our disdain for salad vegetables and our past as Irish step dancers, we thought it might be time for an on-hold change. Some pretty cool ideas emerged over lunch one afternoon. After some hand-to-hand combat and a mustache-growing competition, one idea emerged as the clear winner.

The thought was to enlist amateur and/or street musicians to submit Park&Co jingles in a variety of musical genres.  We immediately began spreading the word among our many social channels. (There may have been a carrier pigeon involved—it’s all such a blur now.)

We requested that the musicians base their lyrics on content found at our website, parkandco.com. With this as their inspiration, surely they could mix, mash and harmonize their way to an on-hold hit. A reward of $100 was offered for each song selected.

Within a few weeks, we had several submissions that blew us away.  The Beggar Folk, all the way from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, sent us a sweet song that made us feel like we were holding hands in a coffee shop with Karen Carpenter. As their name implies, they’re a folksy singer-songwriter band. What their name doesn’t tell you is that this duo (Josh and Trista Lamb) oozes with raw talent. The Beggar Folk crooned away about our process of getting to know the client and their story. Listen to their tranquil melody here.

Our second selection came from Phoenix local Matt King. Matt is a rock star, at least in our eyes. By day, he masquerades as a hospital ER CT technician (we don’t know what it is either, but it sounds impressive), but by night, his true composer reveals itself in the form of funky beats. Not only is he a lyrical genius, he also manages to channel a reluctant Barry White. Listen to Matt’s smooth stylings here.

This process of opening up our new on-hold message to anyone who wanted to take a shot at it provided us with countless laughs and some amazingly original compositions. And now we get to share it all with you. Just call us and ask to be put on hold.