LYLAMOS: Singing in the Rain

In the experience of our lives on the West Coast of the United States, people limit their public songs to karaoke and congregational pews. People sing in the shower, or in the car, with the windows closed, or with their bass on so loudly that their voices are safely hidden. Occasionally, some person with an iPod is uninformed of the possibility that they are singing not under their breath as they had hoped.

This is not to say that the sing-along Messiah’s every year at Christmas, or the Rocky Horror Picture Show revivals don’t draw their crowds. People love occasions on which to sing, which explains the popularity of painful things like American Idol, or going to The Singing Flag on Independence Day, or dressing like a nun for the sing-along Sound of Music. It isn’t that the lives of Californians are bereft of vocal music… it’s just that the lives of Californians are not as musically rich in many ways as the lives of the people in this city.

Because people in this city sing.

Even when you’d rather they wouldn’t.

Our first experience with this came on our very first day in Scotland. We took a taxi from the airport, T. bleary-eyed nervy, D. gamely trying to communicate to the driver the location of our hotel. The driver, Clyde 1 turned up loudly, first whistled to some boppy pop tune, then burst into song. D. and T., after exchanging one wordless glance, looked out of opposite windows, knowing better than to look at each other again as the driver warbled. Later, we laughed to discover that we had the same driver three times, which has got to be some kind of record. (We’ve actually even seen him again, in passing, but we’ve never ridden with him since.) Each time we saw him, he sang along with the radio, with random songs running through his head, often interrupting his melody to ask us something about California, or if we’d made it yet to a certain museum or loch.

Pretty soon, we discovered it wasn’t just him. Waiting on the stairs of the property manager’s office, deep in the city center, T. was startled to hear people singing as they ran up and down. They’d smile, hold the door for her, and keep singing. Walkers on the street without earphones in tuned in their brainradios and kept time with their heels. An Anderston crossing guard stood and swayed, holding her sign, and D. did a double-take to realize she was singing a Christian Rock song he recognized (with the small number he recognizes, this was doubly amazing). On the train one memorable weekend with the Tartan Army (rowdy-drunk Ranger or Celtic football fans) returning from games, there was much singing, although the words were generally unintelligible, and ended in rousing cheers for a team or a player whose name we didn’t quite get.

There’s church singing, of course, and every little village seems to have a community choir, which is really charming. Occasionally someone breaks into a shambolic pop chorus at the gym, where the music is blaring constantly (but at 7 a.m., there is just not much singing). A permanent notice up at a local pub lists Tuesdays as sip-and-sing days, where patrons can gather for a pint and a tune, and fiddlers, harpists, guitarists and the odd flautist will come along and accompany whomever is singing whatever. Except for the time on the bus from Edinburgh this past August where the driver threatened to put the (drunk) singer out on the side of the road, people sing in this place, wherever they are, and no one seems to mind. It’s …stunning.

Holding onto the bus railing next to us, and singing the same four phrases of a Johnny Cash song, or humming wordlessly while looking at museum exhibits, in community choirs and university choruses, in little white-washed churches, and in pub jam sessions, Glasgow sings. And to this city, whose crooners we don’t always understand, whose musical tastes are not our own, but who have nonetheless continued to sing in the rain in this sometimes dark and waterlogged place, we love you like a month of Sundays. You’ve set your lives to music. You, singing Glasgow, are amazing.

– D & T

“A month of Sundays” is a British phrase (first recorded in 1832) that in hyperbole would mean a literal thirty-one days of Sunday. Previously it meant a long dreary time, since no one could play games or do anything fun on a Sunday, but is used here to indicate the very best of Sunday: lounging around in soft flannel, drinking something hot and munching on buttery toast, doing the crossword puzzle from the paper, and not bothering to do much with one’s hair.

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