Closed Sign

This track was born from a real headline: Small businesses closing due to fuel and operating cost increases in March 2026. The lyrics weave in verified details — Small businesses facing 15-25 percent increase in operating costs; Delivery-dependent businesses hit with fuel surcharges up 30 percent; Restaurants seeing food costs rise 8-12 percent on top of fuel. Majik delivers the report through country, letting the data hit as hard as the beat. Lines like "There is a diner on Route Nine, been open thirty years," anchor the track in specifics that generic coverage misses. The mood — somber, storytelling, empathetic — reflects the emotional reality behind the numbers. Every Majik's Studio news track exists to make you feel the story, not just read it.

[verse 1] There is a diner on Route Nine, been open thirty years, Mama Jo has served this town through laughter and through tears. But March of twenty-six brought numbers she cannot survive, her diesel delivery bill jumped thirty percent overnight. She was paying eighteen hundred a month to stock the kitchen shelves, now it is twenty-three-forty, she is drowning by herself. Food costs up twelve percent, that is two thousand more a year, plus the fuel surcharge on every shipment here. Her margins were eleven percent, now they are under three, she would raise the menu prices but folks cannot pay the fee. A burger was eight dollars, she would need to charge nine-fifty, but her customers make thirty thousand yearly, and that is thrifty. [chorus] Closed sign on the door, cannot afford to run this store no more. Closed sign, turning off the light, small town business lost the fight. Closed sign on the door, cannot afford to run this store no more. Closed sign, March twenty-six, another dream the gas price kills. [verse 2] Down the road an independent trucker named Ray, was paying thirty-two hundred a month for diesel every day. Now it is thirty-eight hundred, six hundred dollar climb, that is seventy-two hundred extra dollars every year in dimes. His contracts pay the same flat rate from January signed, he cannot renegotiate until the second quarter line. So he is running routes at a loss, four cents a mile in red, thirty thousand miles a month, twelve hundred underwater spread. The flower shop, the bakery, the farm stand on the hill, operating costs up twenty percent across the bill. For every dollar gas goes up the ripple hits them all, fifteen to twenty-five percent more costs from spring to fall. [chorus] Closed sign on the door, cannot afford to run this store no more. Closed sign, turning off the light, small town business lost the fight. Closed sign on the door, cannot afford to run this store no more. Closed sign, March twenty-six, another dream the gas price kills. [bridge] Thirty years of waking up at four a.m., thirty years of serving eggs and coffee to your friends. One month of gas at three-seventy a gallon, and the math does not work for a small-town palace. Margins under three percent cannot keep the lights on, six hundred more in diesel every month is a python. Squeezing every dollar from a town that is already tight, closed sign on the door, she turned it off tonight. [chorus] Closed sign on the door, cannot afford to run this store no more. Closed sign, turning off the light, small town business lost the fight. Closed sign on the door, cannot afford to run this store no more. Closed sign, March twenty-six, another dream the gas price kills. [outro] Closed sign. Thirty years gone. Six hundred dollars a month too many. Closed sign.