Train Music!

[Iving]

Yann Tiersen - Le Train ...

[NB! If you haven't heard it yet - please check out Yann Tiersen's music for the Film "Amélie" - in particular the track "La Valse D'Amélie (piano version)".]

edit: dammit here's the link:

The ripped CD sounds freakin' awesome on my system - a "test" track for sure ...

[AnotherSpin]

18 minutes ago, Iving said:

 

For me, sharing/celebration of "great musicians" is just under half the fun with these Theme threads.

 

What's just over half is the discovery of something amazing I didn't already know. I'm still reeling with gratitude to Tom aka @DuckToller for Dead Moon's "Walking On My Grave" [cf. Moon Music thread]. I'm not sure Dead Moon are by all accounts "great musicians", but they sure got my mojo working 😉

Suum cuique 🙂

 

Of course, we can experience pleasure in many different ways. I thought it was interesting to find an answer where no one is looking for it, will not look for it, or could not find it. Or couldn't see it before ones very eyes... The ticket was for the train 🙂

 

 

[christopher3393]

On 4/8/2020 at 9:46 AM, Iving said:

How 'bout some proper Blues then!

 

Jesse Fuller - Lining Up the Track & Railroad Blues ...

 

 

 

5 hours ago, AnotherSpin said:

Turns out the train theme is still dragging its long tail! Okay, it's hard to understand the interest in finding obscure blues artists, especially since the train theme is present permanently in this genre, and hundreds if not thousands of examples can be found without much difficulty. Why not turn to truly great musicians, such as Grateful Dead. Mentioned Casey Jones already. What else we could find?

 

• I Know You Rider: ”I wish I was a headlight on a north bound train..."
• Beat It Down a Line: “I’ll be waiting at the station, Lord, when that train pulls on by

 

Here ya go:

 

http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-grateful-dead-and-trains-guest-post.html

 

( note that the Garcia Band recorded a number of railroad covers not listed above)

 

Did you happen to know that I know You Rider is derived from several traditional black folk blues songs and then transformed into a white

folk song in the sixties? Joan Baez covered it. The Dead made it rock.

 

And did you happen to know that the dead covered a couple of songs by Jesse Fuller, one of those obsure blues guys mentioned above?

 

 

 

And the Dead covered 3 songs by an obscure folk blues band called Cannon's Jug Stompers? One of them is a train song:

 

 

 

 So, for me, it's more complicated. I believe that Jerry, Phil, and Bob -- and certainly Pigpen! -- had a different attitude about blues roots music than you do. And I share that. The list that lving posted is, to me, a great list. I know that in my guts and in my bones. It's a felt sense from having listened to (and played for a few years) a lot of blues, live and recorded. I grew up outside of Chicago. So where you may hear an uninspired static redundancy, I hear and feel a lot of life, dynamism, and variety. So many different approaches to railroad blues! Sometimes subtle, but not boring for me, and not second rate. Some of this old stuff is some of the very best recorded. I;m thinking of Robert Johnson, for example.

 

Fine if you don't hear it that way. Just a different experience.

 

 

 

[AnotherSpin]

23 minutes ago, christopher3393 said:

 

 

Here ya go:

 

http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-grateful-dead-and-trains-guest-post.html

 

( note that the Garcia Band recorded a number of railroad covers not listed above)

 

Did you happen to know that I know You Rider is derived from several traditional black folk blues songs and then transformed into a white

folk song in the sixties? Joan Baez covered it. The Dead made it rock.

 

And did you happen to know that the dead covered a couple of songs by Jesse Fuller, one of those obsure blues guys mentioned above?

 

 

 

And the Dead covered 3 songs by an obscure folk blues band called Cannon's Jug Stompers? One of them is a train song:

 

 

 

 So, for me, it's more complicated. I believe that Jerry, Phil, and Bob -- and certainly Pigpen! -- had a different attitude about blues roots music than you do. And I share that. The list that lving posted is, to me, a great list. I know that in my guts and in my bones. It's a felt sense from having listened to (and played for a few years) a lot of blues, live and recorded. I grew up outside of Chicago. So where you may hear an uninspired static redundancy, I hear and feel a lot of life, dynamism, and variety. So many different approaches to railroad blues! Sometimes subtle, but not boring for me, and not second rate. Some of this old stuff is some of the very best recorded. I;m thinking of Robert Johnson, for example.

 

Fine if you don't hear it that way. Just a different experience.

 

 

 

 

True, the Grateful Dead has many references to the subject of trains, I mentioned some obvious ones. 

 

Of course Dead played the blues, even though not as often as some other rock bands that became popular in the late 60's. Samson and Delilah, which was performed by Reverend Gary Davies immediately comes to memory, but there are much more examples. Still, Dead were not so much influenced by blues as by some other genres.

 

When I said about obscure blues artists, it was not to belittle the blues as a genre. I love and have listened to the blues for decades. It's just that the theme of trains is so popular in the blues that I don't even think it makes sense to start, there are thousands of examples. It's much harder and more interesting to find mention of trains in songs of other genres, where they are incomparably rare. But, I won't lose sleep if somebody thinks otherwise. 🙂

 

 

 

[sphinxsix]

I tend to agree with @christopher3393 What would rock in general be without those 'obscure blues musicians' and consequently rhythm'n'blues.? IMO it's simply unimaginable.

 

Let's play some rock train music then..

 

 

I love their hair on this cover photo, I guess they sticked their heads out of the train window..

 

 

An express version from by Jools Holland (from England)..

 

 

 

................................

 

24 minutes ago, AnotherSpin said:

 

 

 

 

1. I've already posted this very video and 5 other versions by SRT:

 

On 4/4/2020 at 2:16 PM, sphinxsix said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.

 

On 4/4/2020 at 2:16 PM, sphinxsix said:

I'm kindly asking the OP to reserve the rights to every version of this song on this thread just for myself

 

On 4/4/2020 at 2:51 PM, Iving said:

after the following exception - granted

 

Hence:

 

3. Get out of this train!   

 

[AnotherSpin]

28 minutes ago, sphinxsix said:

 

1. I've already posted this very video and 5 other versions by SRT:

 

 

Ok, sorry

[Iving]

1 hour ago, christopher3393 said:

 

 

Here ya go:

 

http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-grateful-dead-and-trains-guest-post.html

 

( note that the Garcia Band recorded a number of railroad covers not listed above)

 

Did you happen to know that I know You Rider is derived from several traditional black folk blues songs and then transformed into a white

folk song in the sixties? Joan Baez covered it. The Dead made it rock.

 

And did you happen to know that the dead covered a couple of songs by Jesse Fuller, one of those obsure blues guys mentioned above?

 

 

 

And the Dead covered 3 songs by an obscure folk blues band called Cannon's Jug Stompers? One of them is a train song:

 

 

 

 So, for me, it's more complicated. I believe that Jerry, Phil, and Bob -- and certainly Pigpen! -- had a different attitude about blues roots music than you do. And I share that. The list that lving posted is, to me, a great list. I know that in my guts and in my bones. It's a felt sense from having listened to (and played for a few years) a lot of blues, live and recorded. I grew up outside of Chicago. So where you may hear an uninspired static redundancy, I hear and feel a lot of life, dynamism, and variety. So many different approaches to railroad blues! Sometimes subtle, but not boring for me, and not second rate. Some of this old stuff is some of the very best recorded. I;m thinking of Robert Johnson, for example.

 

Fine if you don't hear it that way. Just a different experience.

 

 

 

Great research. Good argument. iirc you and I have agreed elsewhere about the provenance of music. The parallel in physics is Newton's: "If I have seen further it is because I have been standing on the shoulders of giants." Everything is an eruption of history.

[Iving]

1 hour ago, sphinxsix said:

I tend to agree with @christopher3393 What would rock in general be without those 'obscure blues musicians' and consequently rhythm'n'blues.? IMO it's simply unimaginable.

 

Let's play some rock train music then..

 

 

I love their hair on this cover photo, I guess they sticked their heads out of the train window..

 

 

An express version from by Jools Holland (from England)..

 

 

 

................................

 

 

1. I've already posted this very video and 5 other versions by SRT:

 

 

2.

 

 

 

Hence:

 

3. Get out of this train!   

 

Agree on every count! 

[Iving]

Anyway ... if I were approaching Blues as a [Trains or Railroads] sub-topic again, I would distil as a specialist area the Gandy Dancers. Seems to me mention-worthy for both musical and historical reasons.

 

Fascinating article here commencing with reference to Jimmie Rogers: 

https://bluesrootsusa.com/2019/03/gandy-dancers

[AnotherSpin]

10 hours ago, Iving said:

Anyway ... if I were approaching Blues as a [Trains or Railroads] sub-topic again, I would distil as a specialist area the Gandy Dancers. Seems to me mention-worthy for both musical and historical reasons.

 

Fascinating article here commencing with reference to Jimmie Rogers: 

https://bluesrootsusa.com/2019/03/gandy-dancers

 

Blues is limited in its expressive means to two or three themes (as trains, for example), manic-depressive transitions between irrepressible longing and suspicious overexcitement, and a scarce musical arsenal. Fortunately, in other places one can find free, healthy and natural expression of the train theme: 

 

[Iving]

18 minutes ago, AnotherSpin said:

 

Blues is limited in its expressive means to two or three themes (as trains, for example), manic-depressive transitions between irrepressible longing and suspicious overexcitement, and a scarce musical arsenal. Fortunately, in other places one can find free, healthy and natural expression of the train theme: 

 

I was just playing this on my phone. My wife started singing along to it. (She is a gifted soprano.) I said, oh do you know it. She said we used to do this in our ladies' choir. I said well is it about trains. She said that [i.e. referring to your post] sounded like a train, but when we did it it didn't - it just sounded like a ladies choir!

 

I looked it up. Transport to diamond mines. "2nd National Anthem" of South Africa. Thanks

[AnotherSpin]

1 minute ago, Iving said:

I was just playing this on my phone. My wife started singing along to it. (She is a gifted soprano.) I said, oh do you know it. She said we used to do this in our ladies' choir. I said well is it about trains. She said that [i.e. referring to your post] sounded like a train, but when we did it it didn't - it just sounded like a ladies choir!

 

I looked it up - 2nd National Anthem of South Africa. Thanks

 

You welcome. Shosholoza is a traditional miner's song, originally sung by groups of men from the Ndebele ethnic group that travelled by steam train from their homes in Zimbabwe (formerly known as Rhodesia) to work in South Africa's diamond and gold mines - from Wikipedia.

[AnotherSpin]

More good music about trains to compensate some obscure crap:

 

 

[AnotherSpin]

and more:

 

 

[AnotherSpin]

 

[AnotherSpin]

 

[AnotherSpin]

Some old healthy rock:

 

https://youtu.be/rNJ8MOAj4rY

[AnotherSpin]

 

[AnotherSpin]

 

[AnotherSpin]

 

[Iving]

25 minutes ago, AnotherSpin said:

More good music about trains to compensate some obscure crap:

 

 

slow burner!

[AnotherSpin]

 

[Iving]

25 minutes ago, AnotherSpin said:

 

dup

[AnotherSpin]

 

[AnotherSpin]

2 minutes ago, Iving said:

dup

please remove