Michael Learns to Rock

I don’t take music with me when I travel. You see a lot of white ear buds in dorms and buses these days, but it’s not a look I go for. I’m trying to think why… Yes, it’s shutting you off from the world, but so is having your head in a book. Everyone’s entitled to escape from the world sometimes. No, I think what irks me about it is that it’s so not austere: why don’t you bring your Wii console and hairdryer while you’re at it? (Oh, you have…)

That said, every great journey needs a soundtrack: it’s just, having never brought my own, mine have been supplied by chance or inspiration.

On a starry night in a yacht in a harbour of Flores, with the tackle rhythmically clanging against the mast, my British companions and I improvised ‘Karma Police’, right down to the piano part. On such a still night, our voices would have travelled for miles. I wonder what the Indonesian crew made of it. Probably just an annoyance.

In Vietnam, the tinny canto-pop blaring hour after hour from the bus speakers was about to do my head in. Then a voice-over announced, menacingly, ‘Smell li’ Teen Spirit!’ Waves of relief, followed by puzzlement. Then I had to laugh, because the ‘daa-da-dum…chicka-chicka…dum-dum’ that I was listening to couldn’t have been less like Cobain’s lick if it had been played on a plastic ukulele. It kind of summed up Vietnam’s take on the West, I thought: either pirated, made safe for public consumption, or both.

If you rely on your hosts to supply the soundtrack, it may well be the last thing you’d ever bring with you. (Case in point: Michael Learns to Rock, Danish soft rock band, China 1997.) But isn’t it the more memorable for that?

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