Dancing in the Street

I often wonder how people who are listening to music, through headphones, can sit still or walk normally!

I find that hearing music, no matter what kind, generates some sort of physical reaction; either a simple foot tapping or a desire to dance!
If I'm listening whilst walking, my step has rhythm and is lighter with a touch of "Saturday Night Fever' that I have to restrain!!
If listening on the bus, I have to content myself with toe tapping or keeping pace with the beat with restless fingers on my knee.  The need to refrain from bopping in my seat is almost impossible.

At work I can fidget to the music as much as like.  I've been there long enough for my colleagues to ignore my seated gyrations whilst David Guetta beats a tattoo on my eardrums!

This morning I was listening to some old 70's music.  Not my choice, but the bus driver's.  Sitting at the front as I so often do, I am often treated to the driver's preferred entertainment; sometimes talk radio but more often than not a tape or CD of their favourites.
They vary so much as one would expect and are sometimes surprising.
An elderly driver who listens to rap!  A Japanese driver who resembles an off duty Samuri and listens to Jazz and a lady driver with dreadlocks who prefers opera!
My tastes change naturally with my mood from modern pop to classical piano.  From Bob Dylan to Eminem but always I'm involved in the rhythm.

That's why, this morning as i shared the driver's 70's hits, I was both amused and thrilled to notice some spontaneous street entertainment!
We had stopped at traffic lights in Elizabeth street and crawling slowly forward with the flow of traffic, when I glanced to my left out of the window and saw an elderly homeless man leaning against a post outside the Sky building. He was tall and skinny and probably wearing his entire wardrobe in layer upon layer of assorted colourful clothing; including two hats, and seemed to be listening to music as he played air guitar and pretended to sing.  Availing himself of a captive audience of commuters, he pulled faces and smiled and waved at us and then he suddenly broke into a flurry of dancing; hopping around his pile of belongings and gyrating rhythmically.
He was actually quite a good dancer and his ease of movements made me think he was probably younger than he appeared, but I guess time on the street will tell on a person.

He was not asking for money.  Indeed, he held a take-away coffee in his hand the whole time he performed.
I think he was just feeling, surprisingly, good about life and feeling the thrill of the music.

As we moved away, I watched the faces of people passing him by and he put a smile on most of them.
He certainly put a smile on mine!