Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Big Easy Express - This Train is Bound for Glory

"The train song, the train song", audience members called out when asked by the lead singer of "Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros" what song the band should perform next.

"The train song?" sighed the K-Landnews culture editor. "Oh my, there are so many train songs in American music alone, you could listen to nothing but chouchou songs your whole life and still not be done. What do they mean?"

We, or rather our Random Research team, found the answer last night.

"The train song" is in the music video Big Easy Express of 2012, chronicling a train ride of musicians Mumford & Sons, Old Crow Medicine Show and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes  from San Francisco to New Orleans a year earlier.

"Hold on a sec", exclaimed the culture editor, "the train song is This Train is Bound For Glory, how could I not get that? I may lean out of the train window a little too far but, yes, if you want to call one song 'The Train Song', this is a great choice".

The traditional song is probably best known as a Woodie Guthrie song and has been played by everybody in folk rock and bluegrass who enjoys train songs, which means everybody.

If you get a chance to watch the feature length Big Easy Express, do so. It is gorgeous and in these times of "another day, another war", its focus on people  on a common journey together is soothing.

Here is the youtube video of the gang playing the train song on their stop in Austin, Texas, during the Big Easy Express ride.

If this one does not make your day, we need to talk.

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