Put Your Headphones Back On Immediately – The World Sounds Absolutely Terrible

The British public has been urged to remove their headphones and embrace the rich tapestry of sound that surrounds them, in an article that was presumably written before its author had used public transport.

The piece, which invokes Wordsworth, Pascal and the “still, sad music of humanity,” suggests that beyond the earphones lies a vibrant world of conversation, laughter and the possibility of making new friends. This is technically true in the same way that beyond a locked door lies Narnia.

The sounds currently available to the average British commuter without headphones include: a man explaining his romantic situationship at full volume; 45 minutes of a stranger’s phone on speaker playing infinite video content featuring someone reacting to other vertical video content; a child screaming for reasons that have not been and will not be addressed; a busker performing an acoustic version of a song that was not improved by the original; and a wailing pigeon.

Sure, Wordsworth would never have written his greatest poems had he been wearing AirPods. But Wordsworth walked mostly through the Lake District, where the ambient sound is largely wind and water, rather than through a Greggs at lunchtime.

The author concedes that headphones are acceptable on public transport, for the neurodivergent, and possibly in open-plan offices — which is to say he has granted exceptions for every situation in which a person actually finds themselves today.

“Choose real life,” he concludes. The nation, having briefly removed one earbud to read this, replaced it and turned the volume up.