ENCORE

Who would you say is the greatest musician in history?

The first thing you should know about me is that I love music.

Who would you say is the greatest musician in history? C’mon, I know you’ve already thought of names. Mozart. Beethoven. Frank Sinatra. Elvis Presley. Freddie Mercury. Taylor Swift. Penelope Telephone. All pretty famous! Let’s say, for the sake of argument, you thought of a hundred artists like that. The greatest musician of all time has got to be one of them, right?

BZZT! Wrong!

I found him. The best musician ever. I found him in a bar, under a bridge, in Edinburgh, on the 22nd of December, 2022. It was a packed night, that night. At the very back, a space was cleared, and a circle of musicians sat around a table shaped like a ship’s wheel. The room swayed, and murmured, and clapped politely. The man before me ordered a lime soda, and I had the same. The condensation obscured the contents of the glass. I glanced around the room, and a boy in one of the booths made eye contact with me. He moved over, patting the space he created, so I sat next to him.

They took turns. Two songs each, then on to the next. I won’t waste your time with the first guy, or the French lass that sang after him, or the lass after that. I remember their performances intimately, and they were nothing special, nothing at all.

But then he took the guitar.

There was nothing humble about him, this man, as his turn began. He’d been awaiting it patiently, and when the time came, he made no apologies, no introductions. The singer leading the circle addressed him as Paul, the famous Paul—surname Trevor, I later learned—but he said nothing, just tuned the guitar by ear, strummed it once, and began to play. He played four songs that evening.

In deference to the season, Paul first sang “Halsway Carol”. You’d be fooled for thinking it a traditional piece—I was—but in fact it had been composed only a scant decade prior, by a man named Nigel Eaton. Nigel Eaton was not the greatest musician of all time though; Paul was. He sang with a smoker’s voice, at the quarter-full glass of stout on the table. He had this huge beard, like Father Christmas, and he sang like Father Christmas himself might sing, having seen every good deed ever done by humanity. At the very first note, I sat up.

    Sing for the coming of the longest night

As the first verse ended, the door banged to permit another latecomer, a gust of winter air biting their heels. As though this incantation had summoned them. The brief intrusion of ambient voices and vehicles from outside made for a vulgar accompaniment, but Paul ignored it, and I was soon entranced once more.

    A summer’s light
    never shone as clear or as bright
    So dance in the shadows of a winter’s night

That was it, wasn’t it? The hot, solar glow of the wall of sound on any studio recording, of the best seat in the biggest concert arena, could never compete with this, the reflection, the echo, moonlight. Through Paul, his pockmarked and cratered face, this composition—nothing special—was transmuted into the altogether sublime.

The second song was older, much older. It was popularised by Shirley Collins in 1964, but the version Paul knew was different and better.

    If all you young men were hares on the mountain
    How many young girls would take guns and go hunting?

It continues in that vein, a series of wildlife metaphors, increasingly lewd. It’s a role-reversal: what if women were the suitors, and men the objects of their desire? Wouldn’t it be the height of foolishness, to go traipsing off into the hills, after some guy? Paul’s fingers caressed the strings like waterfalls, untameable, and yet not a single note was out of place. He was a heartbroken teenage girl in the body of an aging alcoholic. Nothing could break the spell. I really believe that he could’ve turned everyone in that room into rabbits, if he’d wanted to.

“He’s fantastic,” I couldn’t help but remark to the boy next to me, as the applause was dying.

Sitting opposite, his girlfriend nodded in agreement. “Aye!”

“And such a lovely song, too. See, that’s what being young is all about: doing stupid things for love.” I looked between them, sitting across the table, when they so clearly wanted to be in each others’ arms, and gave them a knowing smile. “I’d make the most of it if I were you!”

She just laughed. “You mean like the song? I don’t think it’s got much to do with love, pal.” Before she could elaborate, the next singer began, but I was hardly listening.

To think that the greatest musician of all time was right here in Edinburgh, all along, and it was like nobody knew it. I myself had only stumbled across him by pure chance! I was enthralled. When his turn came around again, Paul’s third song was even better, the best of the four he sang that night.

I returned to the bar a week later, hoping to hear Paul play again, but he wasn’t there that week. Nor the week after. He was found, dead, washed up on Silverknowes Beach.

\(𝄇\)

The second thing you should know about me is that I’m a time traveller.

I know what you’re thinking! I could travel back in time and save Paul’s life! I can’t. I’m sorry, it doesn’t work that way. The moment I found out he died, that event was set in stone. Do you know what an “observer effect” is? Well, it’s like that.

Billy Joel said, “Only The Good Die Young”—but Paul was not “good”. Paul was the best, and he was old, and alone, and I was there on the 24th of December as he walked out into the sea. I was despondent. He would never play again.

But he had played before. I travelled back in time, a month prior, the 15th of December. The bar was empty. Three people played, including Paul. He was fantastic. I took a recording, but I already knew that in the future, Paul Trevor wasn’t famous like Elvis or Penny Telly, so I couldn’t give the recording to anyone, or he’d be famous and I’d’ve known about him and I never would’ve come back in time to discover him in the first place and the universe would end. So I deleted it, and travelled back in time again, to the night of the 8th. The bar was deserted, Paul played. The 1st was much the same. In fact, every night was like that. How did they even keep the lights on? Certainly, my lime soda wouldn’t cover it.

During the Fringe—the only time in the year where the bar got much foot traffic—Paul wasn’t there. I worried that, without even knowing it, I’d seen his first (my last) performance. But earlier in the year, he was there again, playing as usual. Until then I had been too nervous to speak to him—a time traveller treads carefully—but I wanted to know where he’d gone, so I approached him after he was finished. I asked him if he had any plans for the summer, and he said that he’d be going into “hibernation”, as he called it, to avoid the tourists.

Paul aged backwards. His hairline encroached. He knew fewer and fewer songs, which he played less well. I only spoke to him a handful of times—the truth is that although he was a phenomenal musician, he was a poor conversationalist. He was sad, I felt, the whole time. And it was all the sadder, knowing as I did, how his life would end. I wished, more than anything, that there was something I could do to help him, to show him how much he mattered.

After I visited every single night Paul ever performed, there was nothing left to see. I decided to stay in Edinburgh for some time, linearly, live out a little of my natural lifespan—so much longer than Paul’s, my being from the future. I took an unassuming job in an office on George Street. Eventually, it was 2022 again, and on the 22nd of December, I noticed the date, and out of nostalgia I allowed my walk home from work to take me past the bar. My past self was inside already, but I could stand outside the door, for just a few minutes, to listen.

    Sing for the coming of the longest night

I was the only one on the street. And, hearing those faint words, a shameful thought occurred to me.

I opened the door, and slipped inside. From the very back of the crowd, I listened. Four songs. I seethed at the crowd. Where had they been, all his life? Where were they, when he was miserable? They didn’t deserve him. Here was the greatest singer ever, and it was like they didn’t even know it.

I couldn’t bear it. I travelled back in time again, earlier that same night, and camped out in the toilets. His performance was just about audible. As I left, I timed my exit poorly, and found myself staring straight at my past self; he didn’t see me, enraptured by Paul. Still, that was too close for comfort.

In the future, plastic surgery is much better, and people can change their whole appearance like you change clothes. I just picked out something random—something new, but still innocuous: bald, faint stubble, paunch. Back to the bar, nice and early, I grabbed the closest stool. Heaven. I stole a glance at the lady next to me, and the next time around, I made sure I looked like her, and sat in her stool. See, she was me all along! You can see where I’m going with this. I sat through that evening six times in a row, the longest night of my life, before deciding to call it quits for a while. Spent eleven years in feudal Japan, then another two years attending all ninety-six Glastonbury festivals back-to-back. Then the call of Paul became impossible to ignore.

I was the thirty-something salaryman with his jacket folded over one arm, sitting by the window. I was the Spanish lady waiting for her partner. I was the Chinese student, relaxing after a long day of class. I was the unseen man occupying the bathroom cubicle next to me.

    If all you young men were hares on the mountain

I was the lad in the booth, making space for myself to sit, and the pretty girl opposite him too: they’d never been together, I only assumed they were. When the time came, I said, “I don’t think it’s got much to do with love, pal,” just like I remembered, and wondered what she had meant by that.

I travelled back further, and took a job bartending there, then a second job bartending there on my nights off. I became one of the first people to open a savings account with the Royal Bank of Scotland, so that by 1947, I had accrued enough compound interest to buy the bar outright. In the ‘60s I learned to sing (badly) and play guitar (worse) so I could join the circle of musicians. I had the honor of opening for Paul, three times, on that night, of the 22nd. I introduced him: the famous Paul!

I wished I could become that glass of stout, sitting on the ship’s wheel in front of him.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, all that time spent practising, and then, and then, and then he became Paul!

No I didn’t. I could never play like that. How many times do I have to spell it out? Paul Trevor was the greatest musician who ever lived.

I still love music, though. And sometimes, in a bar, or a club, or walking past someone’s garage, or sitting around a fire, I find there’s still talent out there.

\(𝄇\)

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