Strolling through the airport departure hall I suddenly hear it, the unmistakable synthesizer sound and that lazy, slightly nasal voice: Enola Gay, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, 1980. I immediately want to return the favor by humming a contemporary, but then I remember…I’m at Zürich Airport, not Vienna’s, I can’t sing Ultravox here.
The flight is to London, business as usual, aren’t we all men at work. The lady next to me smells like sweat, old sweat, not teen spirit. Anyway she is a good 20 years too old for teen spirit. Definitely not a perfume genius. She is making notes of a festival she just visited. I hope it was free. I hope her memory serves her well.
Headphones used to be a thing for kids, And rappers. And skaters. Now businessmen wear headphones. They all look like Patrick Bateman. Then it strikes me. A new generation took over. The new power generation. Not my generation. I’m with the dinosaurs now. Only in my dreams I’m still a T-Rex.
Is it London calling? I don’t know, but torrential rain welcomes us at the airport. Everyone feels very important now, and in a hurry. Politeness would have kept us all dry, now we are just standing in the rain. No one sings. I can’t stand the rain. I look at the businessmen and all I see are flying lizards (...I want money, that’s all I want).
And like I return to 1979. I was only 10 back then. Still, we danced to OMD, Ultravox and The Flying Lizards when I was a teenager. We were all fashionable depressed. Ian Curtis was our hero. Our dance was the bat dance
It takes a good 30 years to turn the music into wallpaper. Music for airports.
Tweet