Fado Is For Tourists!

   There’s something about riding a taxi in Lisbon that is absolutely unique from any other place in the world. 

   Now, I’m aware that most taxi drivers love to talk with their passengers. I’ve had that experience in every city I’ve lived in or in which I could speak the local language. I once met a very interesting french-canto-mandarin-english speaking, Cambodian cab driver in Macau, with whom I could’ve talked for hours were it not for the short distances in the city. In Paris, the conversations generally start the moment you sit down, the main discussions focusing mainly around the topic  the “embouteillage de merde” (transl.: awful traffic). Then there’s Singapore, the only place in the world where cabdrivers speak highly and proudly of their country and its politicians. And, of course, the conversations in Beijing. I was learning mandarin at the time and thought the idea of practicing the language with a taxi driver was brilliant. I followed the dialogues in my textbook, and before arriving at my destination, I’d had a lovely chat about where we were from, what I was doing there, the best things about the city, and of course, the Beijing weather (read: ghastly suffocating pollution).

   However, the Lisbon cab drivers are by far the most interesting, with their conservative ideals, their eccentric opinions, and their flat out disregard for anyone’s privacy. They love to talk. About everything and anything, whether you want to join the conversation or not. They’ll talk alone, if need be. They’ll propose at least 10 different ways to get to your destination, then change their minds mid-journey. They’ll apologise for yelling at other drivers, only to then get all the road rage off their chest by pointing out the flaws of every other driver on the road. They’ll start by commenting on someone on the street, and when you realize it, they’ve switched the topic to how things were when they lived in Africa during the colonial war. They’ll tell you their entire life story when you’ve simply pointed out ‘great weather we’re having’. They’ll criticise everything and everyone. Especially the weather. 

   A few days ago, I got on a cab that had classical music playing. I didn’t think much of it, I probably wouldn’t even have realised if it hadn’t been brought up. Half way through the journey, the driver turns to me and asks ‘Is the music okay for you, miss?’. That’s where I fell from my daydreaming thoughts back into the moment. The music was absolutely incredible, and combined with a view of marvellous old buildings reflecting the sunlight, I got a feeling of absolute serenity.

   ‘Yes, the music is beautiful’, I answered. He then went on, ‘You see, I turned to this station as soon as I saw you hailing my taxi. I figured a young lady like you would prefer this kind of music.’ 

   I smiled, thinking how odd it was to find someone who enjoyed classical music nowadays and convinced that this was the end of the conversation.

   ‘You see,’ he continued,’ I have a collection of radio channels here for every type of person who enters my cab. See here, this channel’, he changed to an electronic music radio channel,’this one’s for the young people. I don’t like it myself, though. Then you’ve got Fado. Fado’s for tourists, nowadays! They enjoy that. I put it on when they get here, to giv’em the whole being in Portugal experience. For the couples I pick up late at night after dinner, I put on some oldies…. to the suits I offer them the no-music-all-news-and-talk channel”. I laughed as he described all sorts of people through different music styles and I thought ‘Now, wait a minute. Can we really be described as individuals, simply through music genres?’

   We generally employ intangible concepts when describing someone. He or she can be stubborn, easy going, difficult, smart, cheeky, calm, impatient, kind, evil, warm, cold, and so on. Music is also  intangible, though we can easily associate some of the adjectives above to certain rhythms, melodies, musical constructions, genres. Therefore, instead of attributing adjectives to a person, can we merely describe them through music? 

   This short cab ride got me thinking about this whole idea the entire afternoon. As soon as I stepped out of the car, I tried imagining what kind of music I would choose to describe the people I came across with. One of them was a tall, slim lady. She didn’t stand straight, and walked in quite a boyish way, although she was well in her 40’s. She had a weird cartoonish deep voice, speaking slowly and in waves. She was speaking to someone: a doe-eyed woman in her early 30’s, who was a little chubby, awfully feminine and who spoke in a sweet low voice. As I observed them in a musical frame of mind, I found myself facing two completely different genres! If their movements and ways could be translated into a music sheet I know that they’d play out two completely different tunes. While the first woman was a very melancholic opera, the second one was certainly a pop queen. 

   It makes me wonder… if we were all music, what genre would each one of us be? 

   But then again, we all have different ways of seeing the different kinds of music there are! While I saw opera and pop, someone else could’ve seen jazz and reggae. Or blues and folk. Does that mean that each person can be conceived as being several different things, depending on the person describing them? What if we’re all just a medley of different types of music, different genres, different melodies, different rhythms?! 

   I’m getting far too tangled in such a simple thought. I’m going to stop right here, and simply be content with the fact that one day someone saw Classical Music in me.