Rant of the Day: Buskers

When you leave behind the city you grew up in, looking for pleasant pastures over the hills and far away, things rarely stay the same back home. Sometimes the changes you notice are real, new buildings, roads, maybe an Olympic stadium or two; but some of the things you might notice during your homecoming may have always been there. The fresh faced traveller notices a lot more than the native, encapsulated in their iBubble, happily oblivious to their surroundings while they go about the same old routine, day after day after day after day.

My Hometown, the Beautiful, Overcrowded, Noisy, Dirty Old City of London

I had always remembered the London Underground as an intensely hot, overcrowded and miserable network of locomotives, lubricated by the sweat of unsuspecting commuters. Now it seems to be an intensely hot, overcrowded system of tunnels and tubes, made bearable by a small, elite group of buskers, dotted around the network.

The London Underground might have a bright future

But one busker stands above all others in terms of quality, and if you’ve ever been to Waterloo Station, you might have seen him! The first time I heard the music of Christopher Morris, I was getting off the tube at Waterloo thinking to myself “what is that awful racket”, a few missed notes later and I realised that it was a guitar I was hearing, creating that ear drum piercing cacophony. But by the time I saw the man himself, the ear wrenching twanging sound had become a mind blowing riff, clearing all the cobwebs my mp3 player had spun between my ears.

Buskers on the Underground

Reminiscent of Hendrix, Morris is indicative of a new breed of buskers performing on the London Underground. Gone are the semi talented, beggar buskers, who most likely sleep in their collection box. In their places, proper musicians, like Chris Morris, shredding till their fingers bleed to make your commute something to remember.

A mesh of some of the World's Greatest Guitarists. Missing are Chris Morris and a Guy who was Busking at Piccadilly Circus.

So please, next time you see talented busker, shredding their life depended on it or making you think Vivaldi had come back to life with a magical rendition of the four seasons, give em your coppers, or maybe even 10p if you know them!