Awkward Situations For Girls Blog

What song would you choose to survive music torture?

I would like to tell you a short story about how I ended up sitting comatose on a train, listening to Kate Bush, contemplating what song I would choose to withstand torture in Guantanamo.

According to Mahalo, the songs most used in music torture are Britney Spears ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’, AC/DC ‘Hell’s Bells’, and 
(?*&!?) David Gray’s ‘Babylon’. 

Yeah. I made that face too. Babylon?

Justin Bieber’s ‘Baby’ (unsurprisingly) also features rather highly, though reports of prisoners declaring Luda’s middle 8 “his best since ‘I’ve Got Hoes In Different Area Codes’” are unconfirmed.

After the tumbleweed has passed, let me uncomfortably segue back to me. 

My iPhone 3GS had recently kicked the bucket, joining Frodo on his final voyage to the undying lands. As such, a replacement white iPhone 4S winked at me, on the train, like a voluptuous siren in the dark. 
    ‘Look at me,’ it giggled directly into my brain. ‘I’m pale and shiny and sexy. Let me sit in your hands! Play with me!’
    After nullifying a fully rational panic that Siri was, in fact, a honeytrappin’ white supremacist, I started to feel a tickling of affection for this new thing. I soon began to worship her, cleansing her smeary screen like a loving mother bathing her baby. She was so clever! And… speedy. And… shiny.

Like many attractive women before her, she soon began to suffer from her own self-satisfied smugness. 

This smugness was broken like a digital hymen when I realised, twenty minutes into a three-hour train journey, that my iTunes library had not properly synced with this new white bastard of a shiny bastard iPhone 4S. WOE! WOE WAS ME! 

I had four songs. Four. 4S. Four songs and three hours. Three hours on a train, with the people in front of me eating KFC and yakking about Waterloo Road. Three hours of a northern bint behind me screaming into a diamante HTC Desire at her boyfriend who’d found himself in a brawl. Three hours of Manchester City fans hogging the table, egging on Danish tourists and rewarding themselves with beer every time they managed a poorly-constructed bacon joke. Three hours, and four songs. 

No person should have to experience a train journey with the following “tunes”:

• Rihanna ‘Te Amo’, a far-fetched tale of unrequited lesbian love underneath a candelabra;
• John Murphy’s theme from ‘28 Days Later’, wholly unsuitable music for public transport between Manchester and London on a Sunday night (too scary);
• Some free bollocks I downloaded as iTunes song of the week, subsequently deleted, and
• Kate Bush ‘Running Up That Hill’.

Sleep eluded me; there was nothing for it. I began running up that hill. 

I ran up Kate’s hill for nigh on two hours. And as I did, I began to recall that looped pop songs are a fairly common method of torture at prison institutions including Guantanamo. Could I survive Kate Bush on repeat?

Hell yes I could. Twenty minutes in, the pounding repetition of the 80s drumbeat began to penetrate my pysche. Those synths! The depth of layered vocals! Her unpredictable rhythms! The stonking great lyrical content! - What the hell is she even talking about, anyway?

I was trying to say that, really, a man and a woman can’t understand each other because we are a man and a woman. And if we could actually swap each other’s roles, if we could actually be in each other’s place for a while, I think we’d both be very surprised! [Laughs] And really the only way I could think it could be done was either… you know, I thought a deal with the devil. And I thought, ‘well, no, why not a deal with God!’ Because in a way it’s so much more powerful the whole idea of asking God to make a deal with you. 

Thanks for that Kate.

After an hour, it began to occur to me that I could sing this song on X Factor. I could line up for Boot Camp, eschewing a paraphrased sob story in favour of genuine musical passion, before chowing down on stage to some Kate Bush melodies.

    You don’t want to hurt me, 
    But see how deep the bullet lies. 
    Unaware, I’m tearing you asunder. 
    Ooh, There is thunder in our hearts.

I ruddy love Kate Bush. By Milton Keynes, I had the entire opening down pat: lyrics, ad libs, et al. As my pendolino swished in to Watford Central, I had fully decided to practise my carefully plotted-out stage routine at karaoke, before applying for the X Factor 2012. Screw you, Usain Bolt! In 2012 I’ll be running up that hill on primetime television.

There aren’t many things that bear repetition and scrutiny beyond a few hours in this life, but for me, on that night, Kate Bush was it. If I had to withstand music torture - and obviously I’m rather flippantly and middle-classily pondering such a horror, but then I was on a train in the middle of the night having a mental breakdown to music and I’m definitely not trying to offend - I reckon you could find enough melodic, lyrical and textural variety to survive a good few days. And, if all else fails, you could pass some time plotting a pretty amazing talent show finale.

What song would you choose to survive torture with?

Join zero dB, the campaign to end music torture: www.zerodb.org