Singing and Singing

We were stir-crazy last night and Offsprog One suggested a spot of karaoke. We bellowed our way through Jolene (what great verse lyrics! I'd never realised what poetry they are), I'm Just a Teenage Dirtbag, For Once In My Life and Free (by Destiny's Child: so many words!). And more. It was both weird and exhilarating at the same time.

Then today when I was on my way to work today and travelling through Camden Town to change trains, a young man was singing in the street with his guitar. His voice was mega-amplified. It seemed like he was staking out his territory with sound, which was impossible to escape from. Heartless, soulless Brit-School melisma forced its way into the cracks of my consciousness, relentless in its volume: you could hear him streets away. 

I love hearing buskers singing with their natural voices into the air around them, mingling their tunes with the sounds of passing transport and the pavement conversations of city-dwellers. I understand how a performer might not want to be drowned out by these things. But my thoughts were so drowned out by his noisemaking, that I felt like bribing him to turn his amplifier down.

Then I worried about the thin walls at home. Did we invade the neighbour's Sunday evening meditations with our jolly caterwauling? The boundaries between noise and music are indistinct and tenuous. Maybe we should learn to sing in whispers. Whisper-singing: there's a thing.