An incredibly well-dressed elderly gentleman with a flat cap is walking along the poplar avenue next to a child. It sits on a Postyellow impeller and looks happily. No wonder, because the man, maybe it’s his grandfather, sings loudly and with a wonderful baritone. The melody and lyrics are familiar: “You forgot the color film, my Michael / No one will know how it used to be-ha-har.” But wait, isn’t the second line different? Yes: “Now no one believes us how nice it was here … But the version of the musical walker sounds good too.
I grin in his direction and he smiles back without interrupting his performance. I keep humming the song – “You forgot the color film / by my soul…” – and I’m glad that the sad catchy tune from the day before has made way for another place. I was sitting in a café and just as a friend wrote me about the death of someone close to her, the song “Seasons in the sun” began softly. Life is a gifted soundtrack writer, I thought and just let the tears fall. In the evening I found the record, a single in a crumpled sleeve, and put it on the turntable. The cover, the soft crackling – a leap in time that you only experience with music.
Of course, the forgotten color film is also a bit sad. But aren’t there many ways of keeping events, whether beautiful or otherwise, from being forgotten? For example by singing the old songs over and over again. Best loud. Anyone who doesn’t wear headphones can then hear them. And pass it on.
How much music is in town. Even on these cold days, when the street musicians only sporadically unpack their instruments. It’s just there, won’t be blown away by the February winds, and often sounds, see “Seasons in the sun,” like a commentary, an acoustic second level of what’s happening. You miss them, wired or buttoned isolated in your own sound. Much more than a few tones and words are lost in the process. For example, the beauty of that afternoon on the avenue of poplars, when a well-dressed gentleman in a flat cap was singing, with a child next to him on a yellow balance bike. I will not forget the two, nor their colors. “All blue and white and green (and yellow) and later not true…” Oh yes.