Crazy Train

a true story about the power of music

Crazy Train

Once upon a time in my 20’s my girlfriend of the time and I were on the train.

It was during what would have been her second mental episode that was manifesting in severe social anxiety amongst other things.

Needless to say, leaving the house hadn’t been easy around that time.

We sat together sharing an earphone each — as we had often done since the days of high school bus trips.

We were listening to our favourite artist PJ Harvey when suddenly a group of rowdy people got on from the platform.

This quickly escalated as the rowdy people got into an altercation with other passengers.

My girlfriend and I were sat directly in between the two groups as they shouted and argued on either side. Stuck in isle facing seats, directed at the commotion, with people standing all around us.

This is anxiety provoking for most people but for my girlfriend it was incredibly overwhelming.

So as anyone would do in that situation she burst loudly into singing a PJ Harvey song and rocking on the chair next to me.

The lyrics that she sang full volume were as follows:

“Look out ahead

I see danger come

I want a pistol

I want a gun

I’m scared baby

I wanna run

This world’s crazy

Give me the gun

Baby, baby ain’t it true

I’m immortal when I’m with you

But I want a pistol in my hand

I wanna go to a different land”

Naturally this was more than a little disconcerting for everyone involved, myself included.

The arguing parties while clearly put off, didn’t stop immediately and I now found myself between two groups of people fighting and a spontaneous grunge rock cabaret performance.

So as a somewhat anxious person myself I immediately went silent.

Kept my eyes to the ground and pretended I didn’t know any of these people.

I became a singular immovable stone in the centre of the storm. Praying to the gods of anonymity and social invisibility to get me through, while dodging sideways glances from other passengers like Neo in the Matrix.

As my girlfriend’s singing got louder and projected through the carriage the initial rowdy party became confused and uncomfortable enough to make a quick exit at the next stop.

The train then settled into that kind of stunned silence that only a carriage full of people that had just seen some wild shit can.

I thanked the gods for hiding me and for the fact we were both safe.

It was at this point that I realised that I was still attached via an earbud to the woman that had been singing loudly about guns on the train.

Not so invisible after all.

Definitely just as crazy.

When we got off the train amidst my shock and hysterical laughter I asked in the way that only a loving partner can:

“What in the wild fuck was that?”

My girlfriend who was still in shock herself said:

“I don’t know, I wanted to stand up for myself and thought singing would protect me.”

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I know how scared she was and she sang anyway. I will always be proud of her for that.

Apart from being a kind of crazy genius solution (the best kind), it shows the power of one voice projecting and claiming it’s space.

That even in the face of violence, fear, shame and embarrassment music finds a way to strengthen and empower the individual.

To this day that is still the most rock ‘n’ roll performance I’ve ever been a part of.

Even if I was just working the iPod.

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Thanks for reading, this was a bit of an unusual post but a conversation with a Substack legend this week reminded me of it.

The themes also aligned nicely with a customary rant that’s coming soon so maybe it’s a bit of a prologue..