Music and the Communal Solitude
It’s been awhile, but it’s been an interesting week.
Summer schedules being unpredictably social and filled with community meetings that count as work obligations, I had no opportunity to carpool this week. Even with the beautiful ease of the uncongested summer commute, that’s a lot of alone time.
Also this week, the world experienced a breakthrough in the social acceptance of commuting, while overcoming the fear of broaching a subject often assumed to be too deeply personal to discuss. Well, all of that’s not really true, but this great video about singing in the car went viral:
And I would argue that the passion one can reach when singing in the car alone is even greater and more unreasonable. That might be because there isn’t anyone else there to suggest that you, the driver and sudden pop sensation, should have any shame at all, and so you even try to sing the verses, which don’t have lyrics that are nearly as memorable and certainly don’t lend themselves to the passion you’re going to convey anyway. Anyone who has seen my (genuinely heartfelt) spoken word version of the first verse of “We Are Young” or my entire eight-minute rendition of "Mrs. Potter's Lullaby" can feel free to take those as additional examples.
I’m using “we” for much of this post because being honest about the communal nature of this solitary activity is the first step to accepting and discussing it as a social norm and ceasing the suffocation of embarrassment. Plus, if you don’t think this applies to you, I’m willing to lend you my car; the radio’s preset at 101.7.
So, why the car? Why aren’t we as passionate in other aspects of our lives as we are when those certain songs – whatever they may be for each of us – turn on while we’re driving? I’m inclined to say that it’s a safety thing – clearly not road safety, though I do commend the drivers in the video for pulling over when the passion of the song overwhelmed them, but simply safety from embarrassment. After all, a car is like a tiny little room on wheels; so long as the windows are closed, it’s extraordinarily private. Right?
Not really, and I’m fairly sure we all know this. For very good reasons, you can see out of most parts of your car that your face reaches. And most of us are probably aware that our vehicles aren’t made of one-way glass. They’re also certainly not soundproof to the outside, especially when someone inside is essentially yelling.
We know this, and yet we continue to sing, contort our faces to match the passion of the lyrics, and even dance a little (again, safety first, of course). We do these things on the highways, city streets, backroads, and parking lots alike, many of which are often crowded. And we’re aware of how often we look into other people’s cars, so we must know others could look into ours. And so I’ll suggest that we don’t sing in the car because it a place protected from embarrassment, but because it is a safe place to embarrass ourselves.
Here’s where I’m coming from: There is definitely a little pride, excitement, and personal entertainment in knowing that someone could be watching me belt out a ballad (or the pop song du jour whose lyrics speak to me like a ballad). I like the idea that someone expecting a simple, solitary ride to work or an errand would briefly catch a glimpse of another driver being a total goofball all alone and perhaps be entertained by it. Honestly, I actually make a point of turning up the radio and singing along particularly wholeheartedly sometimes. Lately, I’ve tried it out in particularly bad city traffic. Even if it doesn’t lighten the mood of anyone around me, singing in the car is sure to make my ride, or gridlock, more enjoyable.
Even if we’re mostly in separate cars, there is a certain “We’re all in this together” mentality that seems to permeate the roads. I tend to feel it especially during morning rush hour, which happens to also be the perfect time to make oneself smile and feel excited for the day ahead. This morning I caught a red light behind a bus full of elementary-aged boys on their way to a summer day camp, and I spent the two light cycles it took before we moved making funny faces and doing silly dance moves to an increasing audience of them. When we reached the light and their bus turned right and I went straight, I made a cartoonish sad face and waved goodbye. They did the same.
Then I sang for the rest of my commute, and I smiled for the rest of my day.
