Pretty much any time I am out walking around I eventually hear this young girl’s voice in the distance, haunting and slightly ominous. I tried to catch the source for at least a week and finally tracked it down to an ancient steel megaphone bolted to the top of an old truck, slowly cruising up and down each street, the recording of the girl’s pleas repeating over and over. This:
I wondered all sorts of dark thoughts about the possible source, was the truck driver a father, playing a recording of a lost daughter, searching for her each night? Women’s rights are a big issue here recently, perhaps the young girl is pleading for some sort of societal change in the treatment of women?
Or, maybe, just maybe, it’s from a junk metal collector who got tired of repeating his refrain, calling for old appliances and metal, until his throat was closing up, and instead got his 10 year old daughter to record his plea.
Sometimes I assume things are much darker than they turn out to be.
The recording is 20 years old, the girl is 30 now and this mystery recording has spread not only to hundreds of scrap metal collectors in Mexico City but to the rest of the country and down through South America as well.
I will absolutely be listening for her when I head south next month.
And yes, there’s a techno remix.
A Bit Gone 