PARIS -- May 28th 2009
A friend of mine once suggested that an interesting experiment would be to have some of Leonard Cohen's most well known songs played from speakers installed in ambulances and police cars instead of their usual sirens. He wondered if people would get out of the way when they heard Leonard's music.
"They wouldn't know what was going on", I insisted. People would hear "Suzanne" or "Bird on Wire" and most likely freeze and wondering where the music was coming from.
"Yes but after", my friend replied. "After the confusion settled and people realized that sirens had been replaced by Leonard Cohen's music, they'd get out of the way. It's very insistent music after all. Soothing but insistent. That's a great combination."
"Maybe."
It was a great combo but totally unlikely.
Or was it?
"And plus, I could listen to those songs over and over again. It wouldn't bother me. It would be great." He insisted.
I began to imagine ambulances blasting Leonard Cohen as they rocketed through the city. Would traffic part like the red sea as my friend insisted they would? The image was distant but not all together out of reach. I could indeed picture it. People would eventually come to accept that hearing "Sisters of Mercy" meant "Get the Fuck out of the way".
"But if it was soothing", I replied "Would that not be the opposite of what city planners would want? Surely the fire department would not want people to be soothed when they heard their trucks coming down the street, but rather on alert."
"I would be soothed and on alert. That's the effect that Leonard's music has on me."
I began to ponder this. He had a point. Leonard Cohen's music was both soothing and heightened. It had the curious quality of calming while simultaneously making one aware of one's surroundings and the poetic capacity in all of us. It just might work. And it would be much better to hear music on the highway than that high pitched nonsense. Perhaps people just need to be conditioned different.
"People would need to be notified."
"Of course", my friend added. "Like the first time people heard a siren. People did not know that it meant -- Pull to the Curb --We had to be conditioned to that."
I tried to imagine the first people responding to sirens. Or vocal alarms even. Cavemen banging on rocks. Trying to tell each other that there was a heard of rhino on the horizon.
"I guess if there was enough media coverage."
"People would be conditioned to it and then I'll bet it would work out a lot better than hearing those loud WHOOP WHOOP sounds all day. I don't think I would be scared anymore. I would be cautious but cool. That's what police want when they're coming to a crime scene. It eliminates civilian casualties. People freaking out and doing rash things when they hear sirens. Loud noises just make people stressed."
I heard the sirens in my head turn from the WHOOOOOO WHOOOOOO sound he was evoking to a low seductive, gravely Canadian voice singing....
"And love is not a victory march, it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah....."
Yeah. I still did not know. It was a radical proposition. But I must admit it has stuck with me. And far from being the usual pub nonsense banter. And it most certainly was. It has hung in there, doggedly. In my subconscious. All this time.
Leonard Cohen is on tour right now. They could mic him up and have him travel through town on the back of a fire engine with his band as a test of the emergency broadcasting system. And if he does it enough, then people will just listen to his albums in their emergency vehicles and he won't have to keep doing it live.
And then again it could just be a cumulative disaster waiting to happen. Another idea born out of drink and destined to be thrown on the furnace.
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