***11***It’s Everywhere
So I’m helping my friend Erin move into her new place last Friday, and it’s great because I’m ridiculously well practiced at moving people. I think I’ve helped out in more than 40 moves, so for someone who doesn’t pick up a paycheque for the gig and is only 22, I think that’s a pretty good number. I wrote a short story about moving called “Pacing” a while back in a collection I still want to refine and publish eventually, because I think they were pretty good stories. They were about music. This story is about music. It’s something I’ve become comfortable being pigeonholed into, thanks.
Anyways, I’m particularly excited about being part of this move because it’s the first move I’ve been part of that’s right in the heart of downtown. Mostly I’ve moved people out in the suburbs, and it’s easy because there’s always lots of free range room and everyone is used to the idea of people moving to new neighborhoods that all look exactly the goddamn same. Erin is moving from the High Park area of Toronto the Spandia/Bloor area, which is smack dab in the middle of the city.
On my way down, I was listening to the new Broken Social Scene EP, “To Be You And Me,” the one that DIDN’T come with my version of my full length LP (it was only packed in with the first 1,000, and I wasn’t so lucky). Other than the excellent version of “Major Label Debut”, the only worthwhile track is “Canada VS America”, which has this great repeating chorus line where Kevin bellows “The Big Guns are coming out.” It’s anthemic, really. I really couldn’t help but mouth along to it, making me look like a crazy person down on the subway, but I just didn’t care.
I noticed some other people down there, with their Ipods or CD players, and could tell they were just as wrapped up in their music as I was, and the only thing I could think of was how lucky absolutely all of us are. Life without music is unimaginable to me, and the more and more I see people on the subway with buds coming out of their ears, the more I realize that I’m not alone in that thought. I can’t wait for the Ipod that just sticks into your brain, thus guaranteeing that you will never, ever get that song out of your head. What a great day that’ll be. I will dance in the street.
High Park isn’t even close to downtown, but it’s still ripe with life compared to the suburbs. When I get down there it’s snowing the most beautiful snow, and I can hear BX93, our country station, peeking out through the badly insulated door of a nearby convenience store. I walk a little further and I pass by a couple girls coming out of school, and I overheard them talking about the upcoming 50 Cent concert at Ricoh coliseum. They were talking about the local Toronto MP Dan McTeague’s little quest to keep 50 Cent out of the country. Let me repeat that. 14 year old girls knew the name of a local politician. People around here have been worrying that these politicians talking about 50 Cent will only bolster his sales, but it’s actually the exact opposite. 50 Cent is making these politicians famous. That is pretty cool.
I see Erin and I hug her. “How are you doing?” I ask.
“Okay,” She says, even though I know she isn’t. Or maybe she is. I really can’t read people. She says, “I’m glad you’re here.”
What’s tipping me off that Erin is less than okay is the fact that streaming throughout the apartmentâ€â€on repeatâ€â€is “Tiny Vessels” by Death Cab For Cutie. If you haven’t heard it, this fun little ditty goes a little like this:
“So one last touch and then you’ll go
And we’ll pretend that it meant something so much more
But it was vile, and it was cheap
And you are beautiful but you don’t mean a thing to me
Yeah you are beautiful but you don’t mean a thing to me”
The idea was that the stuff she was taking with her would fit into a minivan cab, which would in turn all fit into the lobby of the dorm, which would then fit into the elevator, and then fit into the dorm room. Her stuff ended up taking a minivan cab, plus a few things left over. So we needed a new cab. I stayed back and waited for it. A car went by, and I could hear some random hip hop. It’s not uncommon to hear something like that coming out from a passing car, but around here I’m realizing that in the middle of a city like Toronto it’s possible to never be without music. It blares from stores and garages and second story renovated-for-college-punks flats, from cars and from overblown walkmans, from buskers to street rappers. There are so many reasons to love this city, but there’s also so many reasons to love the people of this city.
When Erin and I had finished unpacking, she set up her computer and decided that the first thing she was going to do was update her Ipod. “This means something,” She said. “New place, new tunes, new Ipod organization.”
I knew exactly what she meant.
A few days later she called me and said, “Okay, the first song that I heard on it since uploading everything was this Lisa Loeb song. You know the one, “Do You Sleep?”
“I don’t, actually,” I said, “You’ll have to send it to me over MSN later.”
“I’ll do that,” She said.
“So why is that song important?”
Erin said, “I don’t know if it was important. But I really liked it, and I was feeling a little lonely, and it just came on at the exact time I needed it.”
I loved that, because even though the city is a chaos of music, both interior and exterior, it’s never bad. At least from my perspective, the endless undercurrent of music (or “noise” as the old folks call it) is not only awesome but essential.
Because it can lead to love.
