Serenade Me!

            This past weekend, I visited Paris, France with two of my friends.  Out of the two full days of being there, I encountered two different men that were performing in the public eye with their guitars.  One of the men was performing in the metro and the other was a younger man who was performing in the grass area next to the Eiffel Tower.  Out of the two men, the more entertaining performer was the older man in the metro.

            This man was very clever because unlike the people who go in the underground over here, in London, this man actually got into the trains and performed for the people while they were in transit.  In London, the people who perform in the underground only perform in a single spot in the connecting parts of the station.   This leaves people in the underground to sit in silence in the trains. 

            The performer in Paris got into the train and started singing catchy songs.  He got my attention very fast because he was singing American songs that I recognized and liked.  I started to dance in my seat to his song and he noticed.  After he noticed that I was enjoying his performance, he decided to make his way through the train car over to me and he started singing directly to me.  This made the experience even better!  After a few seconds of singing to me, he moved onto other people and did the same thing to them.  He was very personable in his performance, which is what people like.  He was a very smart man because since he made connections with people through singling them out, they were more likely to give him money, which he ended up asking for after the train reached a stop.  Not only did the man perform one song, he performed two.  After he was done with that train car, he moved onto the next train car to hopefully “woo” some more people.  

            The younger performer near the Eiffel tower was not near as entertaining as the man in the metro, however he was playing good songs that have been recently released so I knew all of the songs he performed.  At first, the man started singing and playing his guitar for his girlfriend who was just standing in front of him, blocking the man’s view of the Eiffel Tower.  She was not singing or dancing which I feel is a bit boring, especially since he was performing especially for her.  After a few songs, the girl disappeared and he was singing to himself while my friend and I were dancing to his music.  I think he quite enjoyed seeing random girls dancing to his music that he was doing just for fun.  Soon after, there was a big mob of guys that came up to him.  They ended up being his friends.  They were all drunk and singing along to his guitar.  It did not sound nearly as good as their friend.

by Adrian Maroney