Music for Travel
Before my very lucky international adventure, I made a playlist for everything I thought I’d want to listen to in my travels (also helps to conserve ipod battery on long plane rides - but as it turned out, I was too entranced by the inflight movie offerings for that to be necessary -“Up In the Air” was totally overrated, as was “A Serious(ly Boring) Man”). More specifically, I’d wanted to listen to all the music I was into when I last lived in London. That was 2002, so it was Turin Brakes, Beta Band and Beatles and Bowie. But I found when I was walking around the city listen to the old stuff, it just felt like I was forcing the nostalgia.
Coming back to a city 8 years after you left it is an odd mix of sensations. It was amazing to see how the same sandwich shops, graffiti (not to mention the hallowed Banksy stuff, which is now hawked in reproductions on every street corner as ubiquitous as arty black and white photos of the Empire State building here) and Snappy Snaps were still there, completely unchanged. The Queen musical that was announced in big tarps in front of the theater in Tottenham Court Road in 2002- when I passed it this time around a new sign proudly said it had been running for 8 successful years. I felt like I was in my own Back to the Future Part II.
I bummed a ton of music off a friend of mine there and spent my time exploring new areas of London I hadn’t seen while listening to new music for my ears - and the discovery of this Mos Def song.
