We don’t write music anymore, just shape an algorithm based on chatter and traffic. The rhythm of doors slamming, terminal locks, and concert halls falling down. There’s copyright on ruins, and we pay in blood to sing crumbling songs, and to dance with dusty hands smearing sweat. An orchestra of saws and hammers. Cadenzas doused in petrol. Whole symphonies of burning tyres. When I was young, I queued all night to buy tickets for birdsong, and I met a man who stole milk from sleeping doorsteps. He had been a world-famous footballer but gave it all up for love. The wedding reception lasted for three days straight, and musicians flew from all over the world to play. He showed me his arm where each one had tattooed their name. Sometimes, I think I hear his accent, or the rattle of a milk cart, in the theme for a game show, or in the incidental soundtrack to a corporate video on strategies for unbounded growth: though when I listen closer, it’s just an old-fashioned cash register and a faceless middle manager lying through his shiny teeth. I tap my fingers to the tired beat.
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Oz Hardwick
Picture Andy Warhol
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