Snippets #15: on the right noise for he right time...

when i was sitting on the train from Lisbon to Sintra, way back at the beginning of my trip, i pulled out my PSD, plugged my wraparound headphones in and hit the Play button on some Parkway Drive. i don't usually listen to music when i'm traveling - my ears are 1/6 of my sensory perception, and almost as important to my experience of a place as what it looks or smells or tastes like. if you've got headphones drowning out the sound of a place, how are you going to notice the hum of the Eurostar as it leaves the station at St Pancras, or the sweet whine of the violin the man's playing on the Paris Metro, the calls of the market vendors in Fyshwick, or the boys busking with cellos in the street in Bruges, the snatches of English overheard that tell you here's someone i might be able to talk to, or the horn of the bus that's about to hit you in Barcelona because you looked the wrong way before crossing the street? everywhere has its sound, each language its own tone - hot chili Portugese blur, hyperactive mania of excited Spanish, the musical sexiness of French or the manic staccato of Cantonese. it's part of each place's unique signature.

but somehow despite it being the 3rd day (if you count the last day running around London, followed by my night in Heathrow) of my trip, it felt like forever since i'd chilled out with some music, and some noise always helps to ease the long periods of time spent sitting, waiting, getting your corpus from one place to another. i didn't select Parkway Drive per se - i'd been listening to it so much in London that it was an automatic response, but somehow after Romance Is Dead had been playing for a minute or so and i realised that it was all wrong for the situation, and i pondered this while i sat and watched Lisbon roll past, become countryside and eventually evolve into mountains. Parkway Drive is a loud metal band from the east coast of Australia - loud and angry, fast-paced and screamy. it's music for angry young men who say "Fuck" a lot. music for when you're living in a city and have to deal with the amount of shit a metropolis like London throws at you, when you're surrounded by souless zombies living the same day over and over and over, dealing with the day-to-day drudgery of Real Life, struggling to maintain some semblance of spark in your soul. somehow it just didn't suit my new world of wandering Europe, in a new bed every couple of days with my home on my back, a shoulder bag full of city maps, unfamiliar streets and something new around every corner.

Andy Mckee plays me to sleep when i'm on trains and planes. Death Cab For Cutie sing to me while i blog more often than noot. Wish You Were Here by Incubus soothes my mind when i'm thinking of home and missing my people. Pink Floyd when i want some soul. Disturbed or Parkway Drive when i want to get charged up and energetic. The Cure when i'm feeling melancholy. right now Bloc Party are being English in my ears, wistful and mournful, but bouncy and exuberant all at the same time (i discovered Plans off the Silent Alarm album by accident yesterday and this evening it's hit the spot perfectly while i nagivated the Berlin U-bahn back to my hostel). Parkway Drive came back when i was in Bruges when i was feeling weary and fucked, walking the streets more because i felt like i should than because i really wanted to be anywhere but my bed with Carrion screaming on repeat, drilling into my skill and filling my tired bones with energy. i swear i grew 2 inches when i hit Play, my shoulders squared and my legs forgot they were exhausted. wandering the canals, my head wasn't in the game - i was still in Paris, sitting along the Seine at midnight, driving down the Cotter with the roof off my car and the William Shatner's cover of Common People cranked loud, walking into Dickson from O'Connor for dinner on a cool spring evening. i was tired and weary, quietly wishing i was home, ashamed of myself for not enjoying where i was or what i was doing more than i was, and adding some loud, angry noise to the mix kept me moving, exploring this faux-medieval town for a couple of hours until i felt like i'd done as much of it as i could possibly do.

i'd love to say that i've done all of this on my own - modern technology lets me brush fingertips with Home, too far out of reach to take hold of, but the most featherlight of touches that lets the feeling of warmth defeat the tyrany of distance, my 24 Hour Friends: people who are just as alone as you are and determined not to be, but sometimes it's enough to have a voice in your ears who reminds you why you're doing what you're doing, the value of it, the opportunity that's too good to be missed despite the cost to your health, your relationships, your savings account, lifting you up by your brain stem, dragging you forwards and making you hungry for more...