La canción del verano #6: 'People take pictures of each other'

¿Miedo a una muerte ridícula? Veamos: según un estudio del 'Journal of Travel Medicine', en los últimos 13 años han fallecido cerca de 400 personas, 379 para ser exactos, mientras intentaban hacer la foto de su vida. Un autorretrato temerario al borde de un barranco, un escorzo imposible en lo alto de un pico, y se acabó. «People take pictures of the summer / Just in case someone thought they had missed it / And to prove that it really existed», cantaba en 1968, hace medio siglo de nada, el siempre certero Ray Davies. Algo debía sospechar el sardónico y superdotado cabecilla de los Kinks cuando se puso manos a la obra con el primoroso cabaret pop de 'The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society', pináculo del music hall costumbrista, y dedicó uno de sus ácidos dardos a la imperiosa necesidad del ser humano de fotografiarse para dejar estilizada constancia de su paso por el mundo. «People take pictures of each other /And the moment can last them forever / Of the time when they mattered to someone», anticipaba Davies eones antes de la jungla de Instagram y la dictadura del autorretrato. Los selfies, leemos hoy, son cinco veces más letales que los ataques de tiburón, y si algo sobra en verano son selfis y smartphones atiborrados de fotografías, sarcófagos digitales saturados de imágenes que se convertirán en fantasmas de las vacaciones pasadas en cuestión de horas. 'PEOPLE TAKE PICTURES OF EACH OTHER' People take pictures of the Summer, Just in case someone thought they had missed it, And to proved that it really existed. Fathers take pictures of the mothers, And the sisters take pictures of brothers, Just to show that they love one another. You can't picture love that you took from me, When we were young and the world was free. Pictures of things as they used to be, Don't show me no more, please. People take pictures of each other, Just to prove that they really existed, Just to prove that they really existed. And the moment to last them for ever, Of the time when they mattered to someone. Just to proved that it really existed. Picture of me when I was just three, Sucking my thumb by the old oak tree. Oh how I love things as they used to be, Don't show me no more, please.