Wagner for Breakfast

One sleepy Saturday morning, I arrived at the carpark outside work. My usual routine involves grabbing breakfast at a local cafe before the start of my working day (8 hours of teaching with a 30-minute break, so understandably I would need the fuel).

Just as I arrived, Wagner’s Tannhäuser overture came on the radio, and I soon realised that my breakfast plans would have to go out of the window. I’m not sure how many people relate to not being able to leave the car when some of their favourite music comes on the radio. Perhaps it’s unique to me, but I suspect not.

The age of streaming has changed many things. One of the most significant changes has been how we now have far more control over what we watch/listen to in our daily lives. So much so, that the experience of consuming broadcasts as a live audience (though not physically in the same space), is gradually being lost. Those moments on a certain night of the week, where millions of us would sit down to watch a season finale. The conversations in the office the next day. The unbearable wait until the next episode after a cliff hanger.

There’s something particularly special about live radio. Somehow, even though we have access to nearly all of the music on earth at our fingertips through the streaming services, one of our favourite songs coming on the radio, particularly while driving, ignites an energy that feels very different. We don’t want the song/piece to end, and savour every second of it, knowing we can’t just restart the track. The communal element, and the one-time-only nature of this experience seems like a mundane thing on the surface, but there is a deeper psychological effect to it that one cannot replicate easily.

That’s why, on that Saturday morning, knowing that many around the world who listen to BBC Radio 3 would be experiencing the same invigorating joy, I resigned myself to having Wagner for breakfast.