Song Buslines

first broadcast: Deutschlandfunk Kultur, August 2013 — commissioned by Deutschlandfunk Kultur, with additional support from Berlin Senate for Culture and Europe — string quartet: Mari Sawada, Biliana Voutschkova, Daniella Strasvogel and Boram Lie / guitar: Rico Repotente / pedal steel guitar: Anthony Burr / radio DJ: Pat O’Shea / voice, keyboards, electronics, realisation: Thomas Meadowcroft / sound engineer: Thomas Monnnerjahn / producer: Marcus Gammel / text: Thomas Meadowcroft (with references to Psychological Aspects of Geographical Moves: Homesickness and Acculturation Stress, ed. Miranda van Tilburg and Ad Vingerhoets, Amsterdam Academic Archive) — duration 50′ / 2013

Song Buslines describes, through sound, the routes of ‘long-haul’ bus trips along the east coast of Australia. Here, truck stops, hot boxes and town names replace the geographical markers of the natural world. There is also a separation between the spiritual and material: at the end of a twenty-four hour road trip on a bus the body and suitcase may have arrived, but the heart is several thousand kilometers back down the road. (TM)

“See yous later. Yeah, see yous mate. Chain-smokin’ in a wheelchair. Yeah, say g’day to Beryl and the kids hey. Cut down on the durries. Yeah, no worries will do. Diabetes. Hungry Jacks. Yeah. Nah.“

“The thing is all night, on the piss, havin’ durries, in fact it all evens up, she’d have to, oh, absolutely, people’ll be cleanin’ up for the rest of their lives, oh you look good, oh shit, that was so bad because I just kept goin’ n’ you f’ckin’ you stuck it on the f’ckin’, had to be real lovey-dovey, “darlin’, I luv you”, but we just made it though.“

“Funnily enough, kids are rarely scared of large spaces, but they are often homesick. Homesickness is often seen as childish but is sanctioned among the kiddies. Understanding how kids cope with homesickness could be helpful to us all. Kids know you can’t think two things at once.”

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