Entering a pub on Sussex Terrace on Sunday, I was immediately delighted by its many comforting features. First, it actually looked like a pub - the right colour paint, genuine woodpanelling, the proper amount of light, an actual barman alert to your order the second you walk in the door. Perhaps more striking was how much it sounded like a real pub - the friendly rumble of talk, the odd laugh and above all, no music from hell blasting from sinister speakers hanging from the ceiling. We sat quietly around a table (clean ashtrays) and, one by one, we remarked on that precious silence, saluting it as a rare pleasure indeed.
Music in public places poses many dilemmas, not least because I consider myself a music-lover. In fact, I regularly seek it out in public places, attending gigs and concerts where I'm more than happy for it to be loud or often very loud. But the difference lies in the actual raison d'etre of a music venue as opposed to what might once have been a half-decent pub. Context is everything when it comes to music and there are occasions when the wrong music in the wrong place is a torture like no other. If my purpose in a pub is to have a conversation (remember those?) and instead I find myself fighting and losing heavily to the decibels, my phobia emerges pretty quickly. I flee the premises.
The invasion of music into places where even music-lovers don't want it has been inevitable ever since the invention of recorded music. Once bands or orchestras were no longer needed for the experience, a listener might play a record whenever, or as many times, as he wished. There was an "ownership" involved - and it also meant that the music could then be very easily inflicted on others. From noisy neighbour to the thumping bar, music can serve a million oppressive purposes.
I'm sure there were many who objected to jukeboxes at the time, but at least there was an element of actual listening involved. The jukebox was the altar where people could gather to listen to new releases, enjoy old favourites and maybe even dance a little. And it was about the music - in fact a good jukebox was essential - and people played what they wanted to hear. Nowadays you have to take it or leave it because the music is programmed for you, and is ultimately irrelevant - no more than crude shorthand for the impression that there is a good loud time to be had.
What it says to me however, is go away, it's horrible in here and you'd be better off on the beach! And the only mood this type of music provokes in me is a very bad mood, an angry mood and the irrevocable decision to cross yet another Dublin emporium off the list of places to go.
And just because background music is loud doesn't make it any better than muzak. And just because it sounds trendy doesn't mean that it's any less insidious than the obviously awful muzak - which is simply a quieter and cheesier attack on human dignity.
Muzak, surely one of the worst excesses of cynicism ever, is a truly dreadful thing. Even Bing Muscio, the former president of the Muzak Corporation, had no problem in saying with pride that his music was intended to be heard rather than listened to - an approach, incidentally, which is now embraced by most radio stations.
Muzak was thoroughly programmed in 15-minute segments, each supposedly more stimulating than the one before. Its purpose was to keep a workforce at optimum level in terms of mood and efficiency. There were even different programmed segments for light as opposed to heavy industry and, when this contemptible stuff was employed in public places as opposed to munitions factories, the emphasis was on a general feeling of wellbeing. (Perhaps it might have been easier if people had just queued up for tablets?) Don't forget that Franco used muzak on radio for his own specific reasons - reasons which are certainly open to informed speculation.
And so muzak, like its loud cousin which currently pollutes virtually every joint in Dublin, is an omnipresent music which is not supposed to be listened to. It was public music with a specific purpose - quiet unnoticed music with a quiet unnoticed purpose. And now we have loud public music, also not for listening to, but quite impossible not to notice - a blasting, thudding horror that dominates even those places where it has no right to be - coffee houses, bar, restaurant, sandwich emporium, gymnasium, clothes shop and shoe shop.
Perhaps it's there to entertain the staff? It certainly can't be for customers like me because it actually drives me back out onto the street. And I wonder about the business sense in that. Surely the economy of Dublin isn't entirely built on the pocket money of those teenagers who somehow seem so modified that they can actually enter places where they sell trainers and remain there long enough to buy something?
When I left that Sussex Terrace pub, charmed by the place and promising to return, I headed for a Chinese restaurant. There was no actual silence to be had there, but at least it wasn't Simply The Best. Here the musical delights were versions of The Fields of Athenry and The Lonesome Boatman played on what sounded like pan pipes. Once again I was forced to flee the premises. A meal is to be enjoyed, especially a dear one, and enjoyment of anything is quite impossible when there are pan pipes in the room.
Erik Satie once said: "We must bring about a music which is like furniture - a music, that is, which will be part of the noises of our environment, will take them into consideration . . . It would fill up those heavily silences that sometimes fall between friends dining together . . . it would spare them the trouble of paying attention to their own banal remarks . . . to make such a music would be to respond to a need."
I'm not at all sure what Satie meant by this, or what such music might sound like, but he didn't mean The Fields of Athenry on the pan pipes, or Bryan Adams singing that Robin Hood thing when you're having a coffee and a bun. Maybe I should pursue my plans for a string of silent nightclubs? Or maybe I should just stop turning, day by day, into Victor Meldrew?