Like most of my friends, he’s interested to hear about my subway experiences. Over lunch today he asked me about the responses I was getting from the public. When I told him that I appreciate any and all expressions of interest, he asked me half-jokingly how many "hits" I got per shift.
He was kidding when he used the word, which is usually used for website visits, but I knew exactly what he meant and it seemed oddly appropriate. He wasn’t just talking about donations but about eye contact, positive comments, little nods in my direction.
I thought about it for a second. Twenty or thirty an hour? Possibly more? I’d been counting money, but I hadn’t been counting points of connection.
I headed to Pape Station after lunch, determined to try to count the "hits".
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As usual, I started out feeling a bit concerned that it might be an "off" day. Today I thought it had more to do with the general mood of the public than anything I myself was doing. Let’s see…it’s November 23rd, that’s getting close to the end of the month…it’s almost exactly a month before Christmas so people are starting to feel pressured…did that account for the higher-than-average number of sour faces I noticed this afternoon?
Or maybe it was the weather: damp, cloudy and increasingly cold. And at Pape Station, the wind was blowing through the corridor with even greater ferocity than I remembered. At one point, an entire crumpled section of newspaper flew through the hallway in front of me.
Anyway, I started singing as usual. For the first few songs, nobody seemed to glance in my direction, although a few people donated money anyway (which counts as a "hit" even though there’s no personal contact).
I got warmed up by the time I sang When I Walk (I Run) and the crowd seemed to really like that one. (When I started my busking, I thought that some songs would be surefire subway "hits", that is, donation magnets. So far, though, I haven’t found this to be the case—except that some songs end up being hits on particular days. For example one day might be a Room To Love day and another day might be an I've Been Busy day.
Sometimes I think that if I just tune in clearly enough to the mood of the station, I’ll be able to pick the precise songs that everyone needs. Although I realize it must sound nutty to do so, I do find myself believing that hundreds of seemingly unconnected individual people, streaming through a subway station on a Tuesday afternoon, might need the same song at the same time, and that I might have written it. Now there's an artist's ego for you.
As I kept singing, the hits did start to come. Today there were several women who stopped in the middle of the walkway and took the time to dig in their purses for change. I felt badly for one woman who did this and then turned away before I could properly thank her. She started to run as she heard the train pull in, and I realized she probably missed her train because she took the time to make a donation. (Guilt: another excellent emotion for today’s subway musician.)
A number of people donated in a particular way that I feel I should describe. They toss in their coins with a sort of defiant pitch—a little angry fling--and they almost never accept a "thank you" in return or make eye contact. It’s not that they don’t want me to be there (I’ve seen that expression too and it’s quite different). No, this is a "damn-it-all-here’s-a-dollar" kind of gesture, as if they’re mad at the world but giving back to it anyway. I like these people. I’d even listen to them if they wanted to get up and sing something or stand on a milk crate and rant for awhile.
Then there was another kind of hit. A middle-aged man came up to me as I was singing and started belting out "Out in the West Texas town of El Paso…" at full volume. In case you're not familiar with the song, it’s called "El Paso" and it was a hit for Marty Robbins who wrote it, as well as The Grateful Dead. After trying to carry on with my own song for a bar or two, I gave up and obligingly tried to play the Marty Robbins tune, immediately failed, and stopped playing. To explain why he’d interrupted me, the man said the song I was playing sounded "just like it". (My new song "Music Everywhere" sounds nothing like "El Paso".)
I also met my friend John, who was calling it a day after busking since 7:00 this morning. (John is definitely my Number 1 Hit Subway Musician.)
Six musicians passing through nodded in a collegial kind of way, including two keyboard players and a man with a guitar who paused beside the garbage can as if he was scheduled for this station and was preparing to bump me from the spot. Something told me he wasn’t a licensed TTC musician, but I wasn't sure. After waiting a few minutes, he smiled at me and headed back to the subway before I could ask him if he wanted to play.
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Predictably, I lost count of the hits—the moments of personal contact--with people at Pape Station today. I’m sure it was at least thirty or more. And now, writing at my computer alone in my house, I realize why that seems so amazing and valuable.
As a writer and musician, I can go through whole days in which the only contact I have is with my family and a few friends. If I have a particularly busy day I might talk to three or four clients on the phone, maybe see six friends on the way to and from school, have contact with a sales clerk at the grocery store or the post office. My personal contact is limited to people I know well—a small circle—and casual contact is usually confined to something very transactional, like buying stamps.
When I perform for large audiences, I get aggregate contact: one large group made up of lots of individuals.
On the subway, I get regular personal contact and positive encouragement from dozens of complete strangers.
I give to them. Each of them.
And I am losing track of who is giving to whom.
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