Do we sing?
Do we sing?
I believe we did
Perhaps it was a state of mind
An awareness of the world
People introject ideas,
Adopt attitudes and beliefs from what they experience
Around them every day
So many lose themselves internally
Connected to their own playlist
The world outside might
Listen along to something completely different
And they would never know.
What has happened to the tuneless whistle of a postman
Waking up with the Larks
The washerwomen (are there really any washerwomen now?)
Sharing a four-part harmony
With their neighbours
Even a trawlerman was alive-alive-o.
Bringing in the sheaves
Is an automated process
Without a melody
There are so few farm workers
Gathered together in one place that tractor drivers
Lose themselves in heavy metal.
When do we all sing together?
In a factory,
They would play music over the tannoy
The light programme, before it was Radio 2
A whole section of young women
On a production line
Of identical machines
Would shake to the rhythm of The Beatles
Or the Stones,
Croon along to Englebert
Did he ever get released
From the obligation to perform
And not be Tom Jones?
Young twits and Union Jack Brits
Sing along to Rule Britannia
At the Proms
Poms waving flags and Champagne flutes
With all the pomp of a ceremonial ritual
Do people still sing ‘Delilah’ after a few drinks
Walking home arm-in-arm
Enveloped in a warm bubble of friendship.
They sang songs in the trenches of the Somme,
Whistled a happy tune,
A long way from Tipperary
Fell together, in time to the rattle of a kettle drum
And a Thompson
They play whale music in birthing suites
I wonder what whales think of that?
If only I was a Dolphin…a dolphin can swim
I don’t know how well it can sing
But it has echolocation
And everybody else seems to think they can
Until they hear their voice back without autotune.
Barbers think twice
Until there are four of them.
There is always strength in numbers
Even Angels sing in a choir
Unless they are the boy soprano
Walking in the air.