Working late - the journey

Hideous sweat stinks all over me.
Summer evening, getting out of the city. I worked late. Somehow this means I have to stand home. It's a familiar journey to most. Strange to say that if you connect soon after five, when the underground throngs, you get a seat. Hell, you get a train every five minutes, six coaches long!
Now, merely 30 minutes later and we, the hard working dregs of society have to mix with the scallies and shoppers coming through from Central.
Listen hard, listen for something discernible. Listen hard, but don't throw up. You'll hear the boring, the obtuse, the obscene and the contrite. On a train you'll hear everything the city has to say. You'll see a fair amount of it if you just sit and ride for a day. I read some shite like if you sit down for long enough, everyone you know will come by. There's some truth in that to a local stuck on a Merseyrail train.
Tonight I zoned out most of the vocal fuzz. Headphones, however, where spitting out the high range into the air. A design flaw gives most of the best part of the music to one person and the flotsam to the majority who might surround him or her.
I would test myself against the bleeding eardrums of my carriagemates. Working out songs from the beat, or a guitar solo here and there. In the case that it wasn't dance music this is an easier task than it may sound. People tend to listen to a very small amount of the music that's out there. They will have been force-fed this by a radio or TV set. Does looking at the person help? It can, but generally no matter how interesting a person looks they still have the tendency to disappoint. Their ultimate lack of original thought is boiled away and stares at you through vacant eyes through the window as you walk on - bland platform becomes blander high street, and on and on.