chant

Today at Green Park station a stocky-legged kilted enthusiast is playing the bagpipes. He wrestles with the plump tartan bladder as if fighting with a demon from whose lungs he wrings a filthy banshee wail. What musicality could be extracted from this straining attempt was immeasurable as the player’s fingers fumbled. But as the tuneless dirge continued, I thought I heard another tangled sound escaping from the bag, another voice. In ostentatious disregard of the attempt that fingers made to weld a melody, narrate the song, chant, I heard the pipe's legato drone. It occurred to me that however earnestly our musician played his pipe, however tightly he rang his tune, there was always this, the droning voice resisting all intention, and it reminded me of the uncontrollable flight taken by our text as it leaves the author on route to the reader, unmappable, irresponsible, free, and in this respect it thrilled me!