What's your favorite rail music?

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inspiration100

Lead Service Attendant
Joined
Aug 17, 2007
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365
Location
Seattle, WA
What's that song that you wanna hear when your on an Amtrak train? I'll tell ya, there's one song that comes to mind for me... and that is this one:

(Willie Nelson - City of New Orleans)
Anyways, please share with me your favorite railsongs. I wanna fill my ipod up before my next trip :) .
 
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o/~ All aboard...America

All aboard...Amtrak o/~

I remember hearing this in commercials as a kid, then forgot all about it. I 'rediscovered' it when searching youtube for 'amtrak commercial'. :)
 
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The 1991 12" version of "Tainted Love" by Soft Cell. If you can find it, listen to it-- play it just as you feel the brakes disengage.... the music's tempo doesn't pick up but it builds in a pyramid effect that actually mirrors the speeds of most trains when they depart a station.
 
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ALC_Rail_Writer said:
The 1991 12" version of "Tainted Love" by Soft Cell. If you can find it, listen to it-- play it just as you feel the brakes disengage.... the music's tempo doesn't pick up but it builds in a pyramid effect that actually mirrors the speeds of most trains when they depart a station.
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In the same vein (songs without railroad-related lyrics), the song that I play on my IPod while on a train is "Rendez-Vu" by the Bassment Jaxx. Not only does the tempo match a nice long and fast run out of a station, it starts off with the sound of an air brake releasing!

I've always felt it would be perfect for a long (3'43") commercial for high-speed rail: no words, just show a woman boarding a train as the song starts, show the train's amenities on the screen as the train hurtles across the countryside and the song plays, and end with the train stopping, the woman stepping off the train, and embracing her husband or boyfriend on the platform.
 
Utah Phillips has a bunch of rail-related songs, some he recorded and some others did. I particularly like "Daddy, What's a Train?" The sentiment applies to far too many towns and kids today. The audio comments in the second link are something many people here would agree with.

Lyrics and comments by Utah Phillips

Disk 2 #15-16 for audio

Note: The audio page lists numerous other songs that people who are inflamed by strongly progressive politics should probably avoid.
 
An obscure one: 'Texas 1947' by Guy Clark, the guy who wrote 'LA Freeway'

The song was sung by Johnny Cash on his 'Destination Victoria Station' promotional record for the restaurant chain. Its absolutely terrific and unavailable. The slightly overproduced Guy Clark version is still on I-tunes.

I like it because its the opposite of most rail songs. Its about the first diesel-electric locomotive coming to a little jerk-water town. The townspeople gather to see the spectacle and of course the train blows through town without stopping and the people are left on the platform mouths agape and realizing that they've just been bypassed.
 
For the trips when you are into a country, blues, or folk thing:

Hey Porter (Johnny Cash)

Rock Island Line (Leadbelly but look at the Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee live version on YouTube)

Midnight Special (Leadbelly and a whole bunch of other people)

Freight Train (Elizabeth Cotton)
 
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Has to be for me Arlo Guthrie's version of "City of New Orleans". I've ridden the CONO several times and for some reason every time we pull out of Kankakee southbound those lyrics always pop into my head: "All along the southbound odyssey The train pulls out of Kankakee..........." :lol:
 
For me, the song that I associate with Amtrak is from a long-running grocery store commercial (no kidding) that aired here in Florida from the mid-80's through the mid-90's, then again sometime early this decade. It was a commercial for Publix supermarkets and for people who lived in Florida during those years (and watched a lot of TV), the ad still inspires a sense of nostalgia that is almost comical, considering it is a TV commercial.

 

The song played throughout the 30-second spot is


 
TampAGS said:
For me, the song that I associate with Amtrak is from a long-running grocery store commercial (no kidding) that aired here in Florida from the mid-80's through the mid-90's, then again sometime early this decade. It was a commercial for Publix supermarkets and for people who lived in Florida during those years (and watched a lot of TV), the ad still inspires a sense of nostalgia that is almost comical, considering it is a TV commercial. 

The song played throughout the 30-second spot is


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Man they make that Roomette look bigger then it is!
 
TampAGS said:
For me, the song that I associate with Amtrak is from a long-running grocery store commercial (no kidding) that aired here in Florida from the mid-80's through the mid-90's, then again sometime early this decade. It was a commercial for Publix supermarkets and for people who lived in Florida during those years (and watched a lot of TV), the ad still inspires a sense of nostalgia that is almost comical, considering it is a TV commercial. 

The song played throughout the 30-second spot is


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If I hadn't not know the video content in advance and had listened to the music with my eyes closed I doubt that I would have gotten any impression that would be associated with rail travel except maybe if I associated the percussion attempting to emulate the chugging of a steam engine. I did however envision it as background music for some western scene of cowboys on horses, perhaps even with the steam engine as an incidental part of the background.

Having said that I would agree that the music is nice and does fit the content, but associate it with rail? Not really! With time? Maybe!
 
sky12065 said:
Click above and two different productions/versions will play consecutively! Compare! Which version do you like better?
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The version I had in mind was from the 1933 film (used to be up on YT; couldn't find it today). But those stage versions may make me rethink the pick entirely. Yeesh!
 
fizzball said:
sky12065 said:
Click above and two different productions/versions will play consecutively! Compare! Which version do you like better?
Click to expand...

The version I had in mind was from the 1933 film (used to be up on YT; couldn't find it today). But those stage versions may make me rethink the pick entirely. Yeesh!
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C'est la Vie! I could have made the same comment or worse about the other selections you listed, but I didn't because of the old saying "What's one mans junk is another mans treasure!" which applies here as much as it applies to much of what's sold in garage sales!

As for "42nd Street" itself, there would be a massive amount of people over the years that would disagree with your comment about it, evidenced by it's being amongst the top 10 Longest Running Broadway Plays of all time.

Personally, my favorite production of it was when my son played the part of "Mack the Stage Hand" a number of years back! :p
 
sky12065 said:
As for "42nd Street" itself, there would be a massive amount of people over the years that would disagree with your comment about it, evidenced by it's being amongst the top 10 Longest Running Broadway Plays of all time.
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For reasons that escape me, that list is wrong. Mind you most of the list appears to be in the correct order, however there is a huge glaring error. Cats is not the longest running B'way show, the Phantom of the Opera is the longest running show, having taken that honor from Cats more than a year ago, and Phantom is still running and therefore increasing its lead. The curtain has now gone up 8,832 times on Phantom as of Friday night.
 
AlanB said:
sky12065 said:
As for "42nd Street" itself, there would be a massive amount of people over the years that would disagree with your comment about it, evidenced by it's being amongst the top 10 Longest Running Broadway Plays of all time.
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For reasons that escape me, that list is wrong. Mind you most of the list appears to be in the correct order, however there is a huge glaring error. Cats is not the longest running B'way show, the Phantom of the Opera is the longest running show, having taken that honor from Cats more than a year ago, and Phantom is still running and therefore increasing its lead. The curtain has now gone up 8,832 times on Phantom as of Friday night.
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Good Catch! You're correct about the error because Phantom seems to have been left completely off the list. Cats had 7485 performances whereas Phantom as of 4/19/09 had 1,342 more for a total of 8827.

However, this however does not effect the point of my message that 42nd Street was a great play/musical. If it were not, it would never have lasted the 13 years of it's two different runs, first from 1980 to 1989 and later from 2001 to 2005.
 
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sky12065 said:
However, this however does not effect the point of my message that 42nd Street was a great play/musical. If it were not, it would never have lasted the 13 years of it's two different runs, first from 1980 to 1989 and later from 2001 to 2005.
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And my point is there would not be a stage production at all for you to get all scoldy about...without the earlier filmed version.

The stage versions are a couple of beats too slow, IMO. I noticed that in the "We're in the Money" clip that followed in the playlist too (and why stage *that* song at all without the great Pig Latin verse Ginger does in Golddiggers of 1933 anyway?). I also prefer the version of the lyrics performed onscreen.

And now:

The better your Internet connection, the more likely this video will stay in sync.
 
Aloha

Well I have read the songs and musical play discussions, and what I think is the BEST train music is the sounds of track and horn as the train I am on, is in Motion. :) :rolleyes:
 

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