Muppet Change of Key

We’re in services somewhere near Oxford on the Sunday after a knife attack on a passenger train. The big screens roll the constant news coverage and there’s a tangible gloom hanging in the air. People are short with their children and eye contact is scarce, wary when it does happen.

The kids are reasonably unaware, though I do believe in their perceptive skills if they’re exposed to fear too often.

I’m feeling it, being the emotional sponge that I am.

I lose myself in the moment and chew down on my spring rolls when a piece of music starts up.

I know it, though I can’t place it.

It’s a teenage girl on the communal piano. People turn to source the jolly interlude.

Then it comes to me.

The Muppets! It’s the theme from The Muppet Show.

We can’t stay miserable. We just can’t. My wife clocks it too. My son, a keen piano player takes a few steps towards her, and my daughter, a natural dancer, begins to kick her feet and sway.

And just like that, the mood is tipped upside down. Art, music, and the soul. This is it. Even in a dark moment, when we have work to do in our society, we can find islands of happiness like this.