The first time I got on a bus in Montevideo, my heart went back twenty years, thirty, forty, sonaba “In the army now”, it sounded with all its load of surrender, defections, impeccably harmonized litanies and chords. It sounded and some traveler accompanied the movement of the notes with a nod., with a walk of the letters in unconscious whispers, with a knowing nod to the drum solo while his gaze was lost on the other side of the foggy window, beyond the avenues that cross here and there with Canelones Street.
My unconscious caught the moment instantly, my conscious left it turned into an everyday surprise: what ancient music, how good was this song. The stimuli of the new city were so abundant that soon inthearmy... now became a strip of blurry wallpaper, a background smell. A simple exercise in decorative friendship.
I remembered the song again the next day, when getting on the bus again. It was sunny, not like the previous day of fog and wind. The conductor gave me the change and a paper bill, while manipulating a radio device. He was a young boy with a beard, without the desire to spend a lifetime giving out bus tickets but with the obvious company of enthusiasm and a lot of time ahead. He had the power to choose the bus music and, at a given time, we barely left the Rambla, to go up the street 21 September to Parque Rodó, He played a fun song and asked the audience: “Would you like a cumbia?”?”. The lady who was right next to him said “give it.”, and some traveler subtly reacted with signs of having heard and accepting, while the young man leaned back in his red chair with the satisfaction of a job well done.
I understood that in Montevideo the buses have personality, like in many other cities the streets, squares and grocery stores.
I understood that in Montevideo the buses have personality, like in many other cities the streets, squares and grocery stores. The days that followed cumbia and inthearmynow, whose group I can't remember at the moment, They were filled with Prettywomans, ladyesinred, walksoflife and even materialgirls and topguns.
There were days full of the eighties, from the seventies and soundtracks of love movies with a more or less happy ending. If there is a song that I listened to more than a thousand times on the bus, but also in restaurants, shopping centers and even in a trendy bar was “Eternal Flame”. Who doesn't remember The Bangles?, Who doesn't remember “the pretty one”?, as Daniel says, opening his eyes like wine glasses when he remembers Susanna Hoffs with her long hair and her guitar wandering around Tocata and the 40 main. Eternal Flame plays in Montevideo much more than any anthem, than any local singer, that the tango, cumbia or Cuban salsa.
Now, for many days, weeks, a mystery visited me repeatedly while I was sitting in those impossible seats on the Uruguayan buses: Isn't modern music reaching the country?, or is it that they don't like it? In other neighborhoods, in other cities… Will they listen to other music or is this a national phenomenon? The world was filling with Becks, Paramores y Public Access TVs, and the DJs on the Montevideo buses continued to offer the public intentionally melancholic stations and sentimental hits from around the years. 80. The public, of a compliant and affable nature, welcomed the deployment of these great-great-grandmothers Spotify music lists with a highly suspicious gratitude, and the days passed and the flame remained eternal and Richard Gere continued going up and down the stairs swollen with love and defying his historical vertigo.
Each 24 August, I explained, Uruguay mobilizes to celebrate tonight in honor of old times.
The days passed and after several weeks of this endearing siege of auditory mothballs I had access to information that gave a new dimension to my wisdom about the Uruguayan universe and the intriguing melodic situation.: the existence of the annual event “nostalgia night”. Each 24 August, I explained, Uruguay mobilizes to celebrate tonight in honor of old times. On that occasion, holiday eve 25 August, nightclubs and bars throughout the country tirelessly play music from the years 70, 80, 90 and even more modern... (Experts say that a melody can already be considered “nostalgic” when it has passed 10 years), and all the young people, more, singles, married, widowers, everyone, they go out to remember yesterday. It's more important than New Year's Eve, what Christmas, than any summer party. Uruguay pays tribute to nostalgia by celebrating and extending memories until dawn.
So I finally understood. The soul of the Uruguayan is like this: demodé with feeling and haze, retro with melancholy and with a certain class too. Live behind but walk forward, to the rhythm of dance or by bus. I don't know if I will return to Uruguay, sometimes I see it as distant as they see their past from the window, while the eternal flame of the Bangles sounds in the air, whose brilliance continues to flame and we all resist losing.
Say my name
Sun shines through the rain
A whole life so lonely
And then come and ease the pain
I don’t want to lose this feeling, oh ooohh
