A Sweet Detour
She had a giant afro with giant fake eyelashes to match, and he was a skinny white boy with a shirt drenched with sweat and sneakers that were falling apart, but it wasn't their appearances that drew me from one end of the hot and sticky subway platform to the other; it was their sound.
No matter what your feelings are toward this song and the frequency with which it is played at wedding dances and at karaoke bars, unless you've ever heard it at the acoustic epicenter of the Hoyt-Schermerhorn platform performed by a soulful voice and a warn acoustic guitar, you'll just have to trust me on this one. It was unbelievable.
I took the train at 7:30 to meet a friend at the G stop so I could tag along on an apartment preview. MR is a Harlem girl, just like me, but also just like me, she's moving to the better borough of Brooklyn. She wanted someone to go with her to the apartment to avoid ending up on an exaggerated Law & Order plot-line. I didn't blame her. The plan was that she was coming East from Manhattan, and I was coming West from my BK neighborhood, and we'd meet in the middle and hop on the G, but somehow we missed each other.
So I stayed waiting on that hot and sticky platform being serenaded by Beyonce, and Michael, and Aretha, and Whitney. It's sounds cliche, but it really wasn't. I hear street/subway performers all the time, but something about this simple singing was different. Her voice echoed underground and people took out their headphones and put away their books (which they hardly ever do), and they were pulled to the end of the platform like moths to a flame. There was a such a sense of community for that short bit, such a sense of authenticity. Authentic sounds. Authentic acoustics. Authentic appreciation.
Eventually I walked above ground to call MR to see if I could reach her, and I did. We determined that we must have just missed each other, and she was already at the apartment. I went back down to the station and waited for the C train to take me home, listening to the end of a motown tune as I bittersweetly stepped on to the train, thinking about how surprisingly sweet detours can be.
No matter what your feelings are toward this song and the frequency with which it is played at wedding dances and at karaoke bars, unless you've ever heard it at the acoustic epicenter of the Hoyt-Schermerhorn platform performed by a soulful voice and a warn acoustic guitar, you'll just have to trust me on this one. It was unbelievable.
I took the train at 7:30 to meet a friend at the G stop so I could tag along on an apartment preview. MR is a Harlem girl, just like me, but also just like me, she's moving to the better borough of Brooklyn. She wanted someone to go with her to the apartment to avoid ending up on an exaggerated Law & Order plot-line. I didn't blame her. The plan was that she was coming East from Manhattan, and I was coming West from my BK neighborhood, and we'd meet in the middle and hop on the G, but somehow we missed each other.
So I stayed waiting on that hot and sticky platform being serenaded by Beyonce, and Michael, and Aretha, and Whitney. It's sounds cliche, but it really wasn't. I hear street/subway performers all the time, but something about this simple singing was different. Her voice echoed underground and people took out their headphones and put away their books (which they hardly ever do), and they were pulled to the end of the platform like moths to a flame. There was a such a sense of community for that short bit, such a sense of authenticity. Authentic sounds. Authentic acoustics. Authentic appreciation.
Eventually I walked above ground to call MR to see if I could reach her, and I did. We determined that we must have just missed each other, and she was already at the apartment. I went back down to the station and waited for the C train to take me home, listening to the end of a motown tune as I bittersweetly stepped on to the train, thinking about how surprisingly sweet detours can be.
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