“I’m tired, man. I’ve been working all day. I just want to go to my bed, put some songs on, and then just sleep.”
“Ah ok, well, fair enough, but what did you do last night?”
“Couch. TV.”
“And the night before?”
“Couch. TV.”
He took a drag on his cigarette.
“You know that will kill you, aye?”
“Nae one thinks you look good with that smoke, by the way. They just think you look like an arse.”
He laughed so hard he nearly coughed up a lung.
“See what I mean?”
“Well, sitting about on your arse isn’t going to do you much good either. That’s what all they companies say now, get up and move around every hour on the hour. Office blocks across the land, everybody off for a walk. Hell of a queue for a coffee or at the toilets, but there you go, eh?”
“Haud up, what are you actually talking about here?”
“I’m talking about playing a couple of songs. With the band. Music. You remember. Not sitting on your arse getting fatter.”
“Well, I happen to fucking love 20-year-old American sitcoms. Always have done.”
“Listen, get your guitar and just come down the way with me, alright? I’ve got Chubs playing bass and that lassie that used to play with Charlie in Sideline Surfers on drums. Me on guitar, and you on guitar and vocals.”
“Fuck’s sake, is this a fait accompli or something?”
“Nah, it’s already decided,” he laughed.
“Alright, smartarse. But listen, Davey… it’s different now. I don’t smoke. I don’t drink. I don’t even smoke weed these days.”
“Christ, you are more straight-edge than peak Henry fucking Rollins.”
“Ah, he wasnae straight edge.”
“Alright Professor Kerrang. How does Henry become Hank anyway? I’ve never met a Scottish Hank. Or a Scottish Henry, for that matter.”
“Do you no’ remember wee Henners from the football? Five foot two, played in goals. Looked like a car between two skyscrapers, still couldn’t score past him.”
Walk through town. Tall buildings casting shadow under the winter sun.
Traffic queues up. Someone’s got the window down, making a phone call, and you can hear them half way up the street telling someone they need to get cream for those haemorrhoids.
Few folk laughing.
Walk past the pub. Looks like a good crowd in. The band is cranking out Sharp Dressed Man.
I’m either in a time machine or I’ve found the only other folk in 2026 who still love Billy Gibbons’ guitar tone.
I step inside.
The guitar player is ripping out a solo. A few folk dancing near the front. I find a spot by a pillar and watch them tear through the end of the song.
Then the guitar and bass drop out and it’s just the drummer, holding the groove.
The band look at each other. The bass player laughs. Then they lock in.
A few notice. Heads move in time. Most folk keep chatting.
The band turn their backs to the crowd and lock in with each other.
The drummer looks serious, pulling those faces only drummers pull when they are really feeling it.
A woman beside me starts dancing and bumps my shoulder. She turns, smiling. I smile back.
The song finishes. The crowd cheers and the band take a break.
I head back out to the street.
The shadows have grown. The sun is sinking. And I’m moving again.
Folk hurried through the Cross.
Shoppers, pub-goers,
chasing the sudden sun.
Stuart had the guitar.
Finding an E chord.
A scavenged piece of string
tied neck to base for a strap.
He had it slung over his shoulder,
like it had always been there.
People walked by,
didn’t pay him any attention.
The statue of Rabbie Burns
stood above him,
watching the Cross like always.
Stuart looked around.
Hair soaked.
Coat soaked through.
Drookit.
He took it off
and parcelled it up behind his feet
against the bottom of the statue.
“Right,” he said.
He smiled and started the riff to Seven Nation Army.
No one counting him in.
Just him.
Just the guitar.
Just the wet stone under his feet.
He started moving.
Shoulders going.
Head going.
The beat.
Always the beat.
No pick.
Hand to string.
Skin to string.
To fretboard.
People passed by.
Someone put a few coins
in the little cup he had set out.
He played.
Seven Nation Army.
Someone walked by
singing about Rory McKenzie.
Stuart smiled and sang:
“Oh, Rory McKenzie.”
He clapped the body of the guitar
with the flat of his hand
and played on.
They are playing a blues in A. Bobby points to another guitar and to me. I pick up and put the guitar strap over my shoulder. I touch the strings; it’s mic’d up. Through a little distortion pedal.
I’ll be where the music is playing.
This is no game.
No joke.
Fuck that.
Buried beneath the city, Buried beneath the ground. Buried inside us.
The world steals. Dignity. Hope. Life.
Fuck that. Fuck off. Fuck you. Fuck. Fuck.
Bobby nods at me, and I play that guitar with every ounce of life that I ever had.
I run up from the G on the E string, up to the high string… I feel them… the strings… every note.
We’re in a moment.
The world stops.
The noise stops.
And we are alive.
I hit the strings till my fingers bleed.
I remember the little room where I first picked up a guitar. Nights alone. Playing. John Lee Hooker Springsteen Steve Earle Rancid
To here
Life Love Connection.
I nod at Bobby, and I play the chords as he takes a turn, and he can really play. A blizzard of notes and then nothing but soulful, bluesy bends.
Then Rachel comes back in.
We can take a place. A moment. These guitars, And make a place of our own.
The little crowd cheers. Someone shouts from the bar.
“Here, yous can fucking play!”
I thank Bobby and Rachel.
They invite me down to the open mic and I of course say I will be there. I get back to my seat and for a moment I just breathe.
Paul Andrew Sneddon 