You'd be amazed at the range of music you can hear in just a few hours of errands: classical, indie, rap, liturgical, disco, jazz and, ladies and gentleman, Mr. Tom Jones. And most of it unintelligible, which, as someone who values words, is just annoying. Diction, people, diction!
All that noise made me think about how radical a change it is from the rest of human history. Until Edison invented the phonograph, we made our own music. Classical literature is full of wandering wayfarers singing merry airs. Do that now and people look at you like you're schizophrenic. If I were a merry wayfarer and tried to sing the words I could make out today, my song would go like this:
Borderline--feels like I'm going to lose my mind,
I can't wait to fall in love with you,
You can't wait to fall in love with me,
Let my prayer arise,
They don't have to know,
They don't have to know,
Cotton...the fabric of our lives.
3 comments:
Well, shoot. I was hoping to hear about sharing the 'goop' bread.
Now you want me to think about all the music of the day???
We're bombarded by noise and all kinds of words in lyrics.
Messages all.
I wanted a taste of that bread you made.
If you are interested in background noise, go to Japan. I can remember hearing the most maddening background sounds in the world, each different with every few steps:
Step 1: Nerve racking speed beat techno from a game arcade...
Step 3: Exasperating pings and beeps from a pachinko parlor...
Step 6: "Funky" Star Wars disco from a department store...
And get this, the garbage trucks play loud jingles! I can't tell you how many times I was awakened by the garbage truck music.
But I still can't help but love the place in all of it's noise polluted glory.
And yet, back in my much beloved youth, when we went through the streets of London singing the songs from "A Chorus Line", no one yelled at us or stopped us or minded in any way. It was pretty cool.
Now I find myself singing along with the songs in the grocery store, which is both sad and embarrassing.
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