John Metcalfe
John Metcalfe was CityLab’s Bay Area bureau chief, covering climate change and the science of cities.
If traffic engineers ran the music industry, the most legendary track to drop this year might be this fly remix of a crosswalk signal’s walking instructions.
Michael Nguyen, a computer-science major at the University of Georgia, created “Wait” on the recommendation of fellow student Ashley Hegwood. Both had been intrigued by the monotonous-yet-catchy voice of a crosswalk indicator outside their school’s cafeteria, and thought it’d be fun to put it to music. Score one for musical creativity: The track is both hilarious and earworm-y. You could easily imagine it blasting at a beach party while hotties spray warm champagne into the ether. (Nguyen hasn’t responded to a request for comment, presumably because he’s out making other remixes of random campus sounds, as per this report in The Red & Black.)
“Wait” now joins the small but hallowed pantheon of pedestrian-themed songs, including Nancy Sinatra's “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’,” the Proclaimers’ “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles),” and of course the Ventures’ surf classic “Walk Don’t Run.”