I have to say I wasn’t impressed when I first heard him singing. Not bad on the Ukulele but a rather thin voice that gabbled out lyrics so fast none of them really stuck the way proper songs are supposed to. I’d walked past him several times, but today I suddenly realised that the subject of his songs was not the usual declamations of love, loss, or some other poetic truth, the way lyrics usually try to be, but instead his lines directly related to the world in front of him as it passed by. I could hear couplets relating to the girl in the smurf sweatshirt I’d just seen, or the kid who’d dropped his ice cream, or the woman with the three poodles, or… he was making it up as quickly as the world went past him! No wonder he had to sing it all so fast. And not only that, but it all rhymed too. And suddenly there I was in it: “The man with the camera’s stopped and he’s watching me. I know he’ll take a picture and that’s all fiiine, I don’t miiiiinddd…” or something like that, but better.

I‘ve spent the past year trying to record all those small moments I’ve stumbled upon as I walk around town every day. Now, here was someone trying to sing them, all. It was like an auditory equivalent of looking at a camera obscura. Everything was there as it passed, the oddest details coming to focus and then disappearing, only to be replaced by something else as it happened along; all one long song about everything.

I had to take his picture didn’t I? We stopped and talked, introduced ourselves, talked a bit about what each of us were doing. He’s just set up a website, gave me the address, and I can’t believe that by the time I’d got home I’d lost it. If anyone reading this comes across him, do write it down and let me know what it is.