One day, six or seven years ago, when I was working for a well known high street
coffee chain, I was on the till as the
lunchtime queue stretched up the shop and
out of the door. I took a lady's order and
was about to move on to the next customer,
when she said, 'Why do you put up with this
all day? I wouldn't put up with it'. She
wasn't complaining about the queue, she was
pointing at a speaker in the ceiling.
With a laugh, I apologised for the quality
of the (admittedly crushingly dull) instore
music, but she was deadly serious. 'It's not
THIS music it's
ANY music. Why is there
music everywhere nowadays? I can't stand
music. I don't see the point of it. Why
can't we just live in silence?'
Over the years, in my capacity as a store
manager, I had to deal with all manner of
customer complaints and comments, but that
one had me stumped and has stuck with me.
Had I been on my toes, I could've responded by quoting Nietzsche, 'Without music, life would be a
mistake'. Or maybe Robert Fripp, 'Music
is the wine that fills the cup of silence'. Perhaps even, bizarrely, former LibDem head
honcho Charles Kennedy, 'I couldn't imagine
a day without music. It relaxes and
stimulates me in equal measure. And I hate
the sound of silence. The concept, I mean.
Not the track by Simon and Garfunkel.'
(Inspired by a recent
post over at Grown Up Backwards.)
