When you get a new toy, it's only reasonable to take it out to play with as often as possible.
Thus, I’ve been finding excuses to ride the HCMC Metro frequently over the last few weeks. This past weekend, I was curious to experience the atmosphere of the first ride of the day; and, because I couldn’t convince any of my friends to meet me at the station before 5 am, I went solo.
A special thrill of metro systems generally, and Saigon’s in particular, is that they provide the perfect music listening environment. It’s madness to listen to music if you’re driving in the city, and even if you’re walking, on a Grab, or even a bus, the city’s sonorous white noise makes music an afterthought. But the calm, quiet metro allows you to foreground your tunes of choice.
Photo by Paul Christiansen.
But what should you listen to?
In offering Metro playlist advice, I’m not going to bother suggesting particular songs or artists; my niched and dated tastes would certainly fall on deaf (if not Def Jux) ears. Rather, after fumbling through my iPod on the route to Bến Xe Miền Đông and back, I’d like to share a few broad suggestions:
Avoid nostalgia. It can be tempting to reach for favorite songs from formative days that call to mind comfortable memories, but in this context, it doesn’t make sense. Your brain will shudder at the juxtaposition of familiar emotions with the novel experience of swooshing through the cityscape surrounded by scintillating surfaces. Stick to new, or new-to-you music.
Prioritize lyrics. The uniquely quiet setting and freedom from distraction afford ample focus on lyrics. So while you can press play on a jazzy instrumental, go for something whose lyrics you can absorb fully. You might discover profundity lurking in a line you’d otherwise let whisk pass like a racing Metro train on the horizon. Allow me to go back on what I promised and suggest the Silver Jews because of singer-songwriter David Berman: “An anchor lets you see the river move.”
Go global. Suggesting music unrelated to Vietnam may at first sound odd coming from a publication invested in deep explorations of Vietnamese culture, history and lifestyles. Yet, the metro represents the nation’s further integration into an amorphous global sphere where concepts of unique culture clutch the fringes of multinational touchpoints. The very concept of a metro system is not Vietnamese, nor is it of any singular nation or people. Let your listening be the same. Japanese city pop, Finnish metal, Jamaican reggae, Polish polka; let your ears hurdle through geographic barriers.
I don’t think I’d be able to make a list of best places in Saigon to listen to music, because the only destination I’d know to put on it would be the Saigon Metro. Maybe, it's not convenient for most people’s routines or commutes, but it’s damn ideal for that, and thus we can consider the entire project an undertaking to promote art while in the city.
