The mind boggles at how long this must have taken to set up. I kept waiting for Feathers McGraw to make an appearance.
I love a good train song
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Musings on the byways of popular culture
Musings on the byways of popular culture
The mind boggles at how long this must have taken to set up. I kept waiting for Feathers McGraw to make an appearance.
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Just a little bit of planning there.
I like to think it was a one take deal. One missed cymbal, one derailment and it’s start again time.
(Cynically) I thought it was CGI at first – but no it’s the real deal, and all the better for it.
There are places where bits from different takes could have been spliced together by someone with those skills. Where nothing else is moving but the camera. Even so it’s an amazing work. Love it.
I went to an Anna Meredith gig at Oval Space in Bethnal Green about 3 years ago. When her Varmints album was still fairly new. Same group of musicians as in that clip. It was very good.
This is astonishing
I see what you mean about Feathers McGraw! I imagine the good people at Aardman are seriously impressed and I am sure they truly understand how difficult this must have been to set up.
I was trying to think of any other pop music videos which featured a train.
But I did get to read about Neil Young’s love of model railways. There’s even one based on his album Greendale.
http://neilyoungnews.thrasherswheat.org/2004/08/be-rain-train-gets-ugly-reaction.html
Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer? It (briefly) features a train… and was also an Aardman production:
Crackin’ brass, Gromit
Saxon’s Prinecess Of The Night is probably the only Heavy Metal song about a Steam Train.
Big Country’s video for Fields Of Fire is very Train themed (don’t think it’s the Flying Scotsman, but wouldn’t put it past a cliched promo video maker). Can’t find a YouTube vid though …
Pete Waterman is a big train fan. His first job was a fireman on steam trains, and he even set up his own rail company.
He claims to have a bigger model railway layout than Rod Stewart.
Careful with that spliff Sonia, it causes condensation
Since you asked…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpx7uM-5Y3Q
Impressed, though I found it nerve-wracking, the speed taken at some of the curves.
Anyway, I don’t care, so long as the driver was in ASLEF.
Even though it stands for “Total and Complete Bastard”?
You will be delighted to learn that we have put that quote, under a V-flicking image of Rik, on one of our union T-shirts.
That’ll show those Mexican bandits….
I am not allowed to describe management in such terms.
Obligatory Thompson
This. For the simple reason that Rory is on it.
Snakefarm “This Train That I Ride”
.
The Ethiopians “Train To Skaville”
.
Kevin Ayers “Stop This Train (Again Doing It)”
I need to get to Clarksville and it’s late. Any suggestions?
Can’t ignore this…..
The Maniacs, of course, did another train song. I prefer this to the Cat Stevens original.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9ymhfB5nys
One of my favourite songs from one of my favourite albums.
Not a song but a poem – but a poem can sing, right readers?
https://youtu.be/zmciuKsBOi0
W.H. Auden – This is the Night Mail
Not a song, not a poem but a monologue.
Not a song, a poem or a monologue. Instrumental trad with a train rhythm…
and set to music by PSB
(but not the Pet Shop variety)
Elvis did a great version, so did the Band, so did Paul Butterfield, but I can’t go past my namesake.
We have a few Jane Siberry fans around here, don’t we?
Love the Les Dawson piano on this.
I’ve always loved this.
Oh my goodness!
I’ve just found this on YouTube. I had these records when I was little. I played them endlessly.
Good old Johnny Morris. Is it still ok to like him?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nm1vsqEaXgU
I recently discovered this nine minute version. Deep joy.
Flash and The Pan – Waiting For A Train.
Back in the pub in the mid 80’s
Apparently it features some geezer in a beret on guitar
And while I’m at it, another fave from the last century
Clint Eastwood (no, not that one) & General Saint – Stop That Train:
What this thread needs is a bit of Pub Rock perhaps …
Count Bishops Train Train
I mean, who doesn’t (apart from wrongers)?
This has got me all emotional.
Double whammy. Song and band.
Kraftwerk – Trans Europe Express:
In France, every train journey becomes a dramatic love affair.
Le Grand Corps Malade tells it like it.
I bet The Big, Sick Body does not travel on Virgin Rail
Time for the 10 10 train which is possibly the one after 9:09
hit the switch marked “Crazy Horse”
How about a trip east with Momus?
And at the other end you can head over to Hokkaido and take the bullet train with Stacey Kent.
The excellent lyrics are by Kazuo Ishiguro.
https://www.donga.com/en/article/all/20171023/1103071/1/Nobel-Prize-winning-novelist-s-new-piece-of-work-released
I’m surprised this hasn’t made an appearance yet.
Duke Ellington “Take the A Train” vocal (uncredited) by Betty Roché.
Tom Waits wrote it, Rod Stewart covered it, but I prefer Bob Seger’s version.
Downtown Train
The Kinks – Last of the Steam Powered Trains:
The Clash – Train in Vain:
The problem with Train In Vain is that, apart from the title, there is no train imagery in the lyrics.
This is very odd, and there is fakery involved – where’s the drummer, eh? Eh? But it’s a train song.
Phil Odgers: The Train
Great tune, great video… Matt Johnson going rrrrright over the top and Neneh Cherry when she had nowt.
Stop That Mule Train!
Love this one.
Harmonicas and train song are like bread and butter. Dig the playing by Jim Conway. His brother Mick on vocals.
“It was a train that took me away from here, but a train can’t bring me home”
What better train song than Tom Waits’s “Train Song”?
A Downtown Train?
The saddest train song of them all.
No more will I go to Blandford Forum…
Rules is rules, haven’t you read the by-laws?
From their “purple patch” period.
An act so good they could survive being covered by The Wonder Stuff. And if my elder offspring is reading this – like that’s going to happen – proof that people were gay in the olden days.
Gorgeous tune from the underrated Hearts and Bones record.
The second “Excerpt From A Teenage Opera” single by Keith West, was “Sam” and was about a steam train and it’s driver. A sad tale with an amazing everything-but-the-kitchen-sink arrangement. It must have cost a fortune.
The song I want playing at my funeral…
https://youtu.be/-gLs6YNnqZY
The Klf!
New Delhi Freight Train. Better known by Little Feat but I believe this is the original from Terry Allen and boy does it kick bottom. PLAY IT LOUD.
You don’t get this standard of in carriage entertainment on Southern Rail.
Best song ever written about Ongar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68cqDJvzJao
@mousey wins!
Yep. Agree
Time for some steam train action, with Michael Chapman’s “Mallard”:
“Who will I take on a steam train ride?
Who will keep me safe in the dead of nights?
Now there’s no mallard or you”
I am VERY surprised that none of “you” Radio Listeners from/of the “50’s did not name “The Last Train To San Fernando” by Johnny Duncan & The Bluegrass Boys ( IRC) – Toot Toot.
OR “Freight Train” by Chas McDevitt & Nancy Whiskey – I believe Lonnie Donegan did a version of “F/T”.
Jimmy Barnes/Cold Chisel made mention of the “Last Train out of Sydney” in the song “Khe Sahn” -not quite a Train Song tho!
Taj Mahal does a great version of Freight Train. He could probably do a whole album of train songs. Here he is doing She Caught The Katy live. Union Pacific Railroad’s famous Katy Flyer being the fast train to St. Louis.
Here’s a great song by a band you’ve probably never heard of – The Westies (though their main man Michael McDermott might be known to some).
Tennessee Ernie Ford “The Tennessee Local”
More HMHB (and it’s not about trains either).
Lest we forget….
Not forgetting the other choo choo.