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27 June 2019

Poetry Thursday - train songs

Coming across these photos, taken at my local station (Crouch Hill, on the Gospel Oak to Barking line of the London Overground, four trains an hour in each direction, and a variable number of freight trains) on a sunny morning in late May, I thought there surely will be a semi-famous poem about a freight train....



Train train train 
Page 1 of an online search, though, came up with Wikipedia's List of Train Songs - "about 1,000 songs by artists worldwide, alphabetized by song title" - both recorded and, pre-recording-era, printed.

Spinning at random, the mouse wheel stopped at Different Trains by Steve Reich (b.1936). Listen - and catch the screened footage accompanying the performance - here.
"Reich's work took on a darker character in the 1980s with the introduction of historical themes as well as themes from his Jewish heritage, notably Different Trains."

Another spin of the wheel, and a click or two - we arrive at The Traditional Ballad Today, in which is the song that has been going through my head -

DESCRIPTION: "Freight train, freight train, run so fast/Please don't tell what train I'm on/So they won't know where I've gone." Rest of song gives singer's wishes for her burial "at the foot of old Chestnut Street."
AUTHOR: Elizabeth Cotten
EARLIEST DATE: 1952 (composed c. 1905?)
'
Its author recorded it, and so did Pete Seeger (and some others). The entry adds a note:
Though not folk in origin, it was so widely recorded in the Sixties that it did seem briefly to go into oral tradition, though I suspect it's nearly dead as a folk song by now. 
The popularity of the song seems to have been due partly to its use as a fingerpicking exercise. It is ironic to note that Elizabeth Cotten herself was left-handed, but instead of playing a left-handed guitar, she played a right-handed guitar flipped 180 degrees (i.e. she had her left hand on the fretboard, but with the bass strings on top and the treble on the bottom). So effectively none of the people imitating her style are actually imitating her technique.
Here she is, along with the lyrics for the folk song - I remember a line that went "...as long as I keep travelling on" - that must have been in another version.

Freight train, freight train, run so fast
Freight train, freight train, run so fast
Please don't tell what train I'm on
They won't know what route I'm going
When I'm dead and in my grave
No more good times here I crave
Place the stones at my head and feet
And tell them all I've gone to sleep
When I die, oh bury me deep
Down at the end of old Chestnut Street
So I can hear old Number Nine
As she comes rolling by
When I die, oh bury me deep
Down at the end of old Chestnut Street
Place the stones at my head and feet
And tell them all I've gone to sleep
Freight train, freight train, run so fast
Freight train, freight train, run so fast
Please don't tell what train I'm on
They won't know what route I'm going

As for the semi-famous poem about a freight train ... any suggestions?

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