Time to silence antisocial music on trains
It’s hard to raise this topic without sounding like the comments section of the Daily Telegraph, but raise it we must. There is a crescendo of unwanted and invasive noise on the British transport system. In particular, people playing music on their phones on the trains.
It is obviously annoying to be force-fed Skepta or Lady Sovereign on Southern Rail because music is a highly personal choice, and what other people think is great, the chances are I think is rubbish. Also, I like to choose when I listen to music. While writing, when driving, soaking in the bath. But not while traveling from Eastbourne to Brighton on a train.
Like pretty much everyone else in a train carriage when the music cranks up, I internalise my annoyance and inwardly fume. I might tut inaudibly or make eye contact with a fellow sufferer. I might fantasise about throwing the offending device off the train, followed by its owner. But I usually suck it up because of fear of violence.
The widespread playing of music is far more significant than my personal annoyance. It’s not about personal taste, like me silently judging your choice of trainers. Sambas? Really? It’s about the wider sociological implications. The fact is that to play music loudly in a train carriage suggests a certain psychopathy. It means that the music player lacks any sense of society, civility, or regard for others. It says: ‘I am important, and you are not’. It means ‘I don’t care about anyone else, and have no fear of sanction, reproach, or social norms.’
From where does this now-widespread narcissism come? It has certainly spread in recent years, and seems generational. Again, without getting all Daily Telegraph, it is the under-25s who treat the rest of the carriage to their choices of musical entertainment. For this, we can probably blame social media. Social media, with its individualistic curation of perfect imagery and confected fakery, is inculcating real life. Behaviours learned on socials become norms in the real world, and in particular on my train. Communication without consequence on Zoom, Snapchat or X translates into you playing your crap on the 5.15.
It is obviously antisocial to play music on a train. That’s why the Railway Bylaws make it clear that to ‘use any instrument, article or equipment for the production or reproduction of sound’ is against the rules. It is placed in the same category as littering, scribbling on the walls, spitting on the train, or soiling the seats. It should be no more acceptable to blare noise from your phone than to take a dump in the luggage rack, and yet that’s the track we’re on. Where bylaws end tyranny begins, as John Locke almost said.
My real problem is what it says about the breakdown of civility. A strong society rests on unspoken contracts of reciprocity and co-operation. These social bonds should be enforced, not by authority, but by a shared sense of connection. We queue. We help people with buggies. We race after someone who has dropped their purse. We give up our seat if someone looks like they need it. We don’t throw our litter on the ground, or spit, or swear, or start loudly singing She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain.
That’s what irks me. Not that you should be wearing the headphones, not me. But rather, the question who governs our shared spaces? The noisy narcissists are at the gate. The sociopaths have the best seats. Your basic civility is subject to cancellation, disruption or delay due to trespassers on the line, and a signal failure to abide by the rules.
The situation is not yet beyond rescue. We used to smoke cigarettes on trains, and now we don’t. Things can change for the better, through a combination of regulation, persuasion, social marketing, and loud tutting. More patrols by British Transport Police enforcing the bylaws would help. We can bring the music to its coda, before cacophony consumes us all. Every carriage should be the quiet carriage. But hurry, the last train is leaving the station.
