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Top 10 Train Song list corrected: Grateful Dead out, Kinks in

So many train songs. I think I said that in my last train post.

To update: We (namely me) made a train list dedicated to Railroad Park, which we love. We also would love to see a children’s choo choo there or at the least a steam engine artifact or something. Anyway, we made the list more or less as an awareness campaign to get folks thinking about it. The official version is that a choo choo train doesn’t fit into the park’s long-term vision.

OK, I hear that.  I suppose visions can be corrected (reminds me I need to make an eye doctor’s appointment soon. But I digress).

So we made the list, I published it here and on AL.com and something bugged me. I  decided I didn’t like our 8th pick ‘Casey Jones’ by the Grateful Dead. Sure it’s a classic, but the cocaine fueled train song seemed inappropriate  for a discussion involving children.

So I asked for and received lots of good suggestions for replacements (see below). Now I am making what might be a  controversial decision. I am replacing ‘Casey Jones’ with two relatively obscure songs by the seemingly obscure, but not really, The Kinks. They are one of my favorite bands which you will find out more about later in myvinylcountdown.com

The replacement songs: ‘Lonesome Train’ (relatively new from head Kink Ray Davies.)

And: ‘Last of the Steam Powered Trains’ (relatively old by the Kinks as a group).

I am going to have those two Kinks selections share the No.8 position in the same way PPM’s ‘500 Miles’ and ‘Folsom Prison Blues’ share No. 1.

Now without further ado here are the Top 10 (er, 12) train songs. be sure to click on the Kinks videos at No. 8 to hear the replacements.

BTW, all of your suggestions, thank you very much, are listed after the Top 10 list.

10: Ozzy Osbourne “Crazy Train”

I know i’t old school heavy metal, but I like it, like it, yes I do.

 

9: Cracker “I See the Light”

Not really thought of as a train song but it is in a punch line sort of way. I just like this song. And if you listen you’ll see why I picked it.

8:  Kinks “Lonesome Train” and “Last of the Steam Powered Trains”

Two good ones but rather obscure. I’m doing my part to change that.

7: Creedence Clearwater Revival. “Midnight Special”

CCR didn’t have many, if any, bad songs. This train song was one great one.

6: “People Get Ready (There’s a train a-coming)” Curtis Mayfield/ Impressions

I do love it when Rod Stewart sings this song but I have to give this to the original. 

But Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions are hard to beat. Here’s Curtis by himself with guitar, beautiful.

5: Blackfoot. “Train Train”

I saw them live years ago and this was the only song I remember. (Maybe it was the only song they played.) If your kids aren’t head banging after Ozzy, they will be by this one.

4: This Train Is Bound For Glory”- Mumford and Sons, Edward Sharpe – The Old Crow Medicine Show

Good time video almost pushed this higher. Lots of granola and moonshine for this crunchy group of hippie/ roots rockers on a classic, train bound for glory.

3: Bob Dylan. “Slow Train Coming”

Just a good song. Underrated Dylan. Good live version. Alabama angle:

I had a woman out in Alabama, She’s a backwoods girl but she sure was realistic

She said, boy, without a doubt, you got to kick your mess and straighten out, you could die down here, just be another accident statistic

2: Gladys Knight and the Pips. “Midnight Train to Georgia.”

‘I’d rather live in his world than live without him in mine.’ Enough said.

1 (Tie): Johnny Cash. “Folsom Prison Blues.”

Yes, I  copped out and have two as my No. 1. A tie. But I got to those last two and they are such great train songs which  by definition must have a train-whistle ache about them.  After doing this, I looked back and realized I don’t have ‘Peace Train’ by Cat Stevens or some other popular choices for train songs (e.g. Last Train to Clarksville)

But when it came to final two, I could not choose between them. Cop out, yes. But you tell me what to cut. Nevermind, I know which one it will be.

Anyway, it should not be this Cash song. You could do a whole top 10 train songs by Cash alone. And this song might arguably be called a prison song. However, I say, this has one of the most recognizable openings of any train song ever. “I hear the train a coming, it’s coming around the bend.”   The train where people are in fancy dining cars, he laments,  reminds him every day of his lost freedom.

 

1 (Tie)_ Peter Paul and Mary. “500 Miles”

Shuddup. I will defend this No. 1 pick to the ends of the earth or at least 500 miles.

 Honorable Mention: Stoney Larue. “Train to Birmingham”

We’ll start you off with an Honorable  Mention. New song it may crack the list with a little more  time. JA introduced this one to me. Has crying, lying, dying and Birmingham, oh, and a guitar full of blues. Great song. The studio version has a little sad sounding fiddle.

Here is my other honorable mention:  Runaway Train by Soul Asylum and I was considering Clash “Train in Vain,”  then I realized that except in the title, there’s no train a-comin’ in the lyrics. In fact, no train at all unless I’m missing something.

Here’s a list of great train songs submitted by readers. Don’t worry they’ll be on somebody’s train song list somewhere down the line.

  • “Love in Vain” Robert Johnson. The legendary blues guitarist who influenced Clapton and a legion of rock guitar slingers.
  • “Orange Blossom Special,” Johnny Cash.
  • Elizabeth Cotton or Pete Seeger, Freight Train. Cotton is an amazing woman. Check out this video.

  • Paul Simon’s “Train in the Distance.”
  • Aeorosmith “Train Kept a Rollin’ the rollicking  cover of old blues song, also done by the Yardbirds.
  • ‘Last Train to Clarksville’ by the Monkees.
  • The Nields’ “Train.” Leave it to my good friend Bob to come up with something I’ve never heard or heard of — and it’s a great piece by a female duo.
  • “Waitin’ for a Train” by Jimmie Rodgers, the Singing Brakeman, another legendary folk singer (complete with yodels).
  • “Peace Train” by Cat Stevens
  • City of New Orleans” The Arlo Guthrie version of the Steve Goodman song.
  • Syd Straw’s “The Train that Takes You Away.” Great, if not obscure, song.
  • Gary Clarke, Jr’s bluesy rocker, “When My Train Pulls In.” Audience loved him so much they serenaded him before  he launched in bluesy train song.
  • “Throw Mama From a Train — a Kiss a Kiss.” The Sandpipers. Funny funny. Thanks Marvin.
  • Nanci Griffith – 1) So Long Ago. 2) Southbound Train. Nanci has a few train songs in her and I like them all.
  • Janis Joplin – Me and Bobbi McGee. Um, this is possibly my favorite all time song. Not sure it’s a train song, though the protagonist is ‘headin’ for a train,  feeling nearly faded as my jeans.’ Kristofferson wrote. Found this video of an aging Kristofferson doing this — pretty amazing:

    • Eagles – Train Leaves Here This Morning – Pleasant. Not so sure the Dude would like it.
    • Gordon Lightfoot – Canadian Railroad Trilogy. Historic account of real event as Gordon liked to do.
    • Wreck of the Old 97. Classic country sung by Johnny Cash and  others.
    • Desperados waiting for a Train –Guy Clark (several other versions), including the aforementioned Nanci with Clark.
  • “The Train Song” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.
  • Chattanooga Choo Choo —classic, written by a songwriting duo while on a train called the Birmingham Special. Would have been a slam dunk if they named it the Birmingham Choo Choo. (Or, perhaps, not)>
  • “The Locomotion” original by LIttle Eva, babysitter for Carole King. Later Grand Funk Railroad.

  • And one reader says it would be a ‘travesty’ to get rid of Grateful Dead entirely so the reader suggested Dead renditions of “Big Railroad Blues” or Willie Fuller’s “Beat It On Down the Line,” either his original or their cover of it.
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Sayings to live by, or adjacent to, or in the same block of

NOTE: A different version of this is posted on AL.com here.

One day recently, I happened to be hanging around with myself and overheard some of the things I say. I’m a fan of Steven Wright so some sounded like him. Some sounded like Mark Twain on a day when he wasn’t feeling well. Will Rogers? Well Will he?

Anyway here they are. My joy would be that you stick them on that refigerator called Facebook.

  • I have a memory disorder. I remember things before they happen. After they happen?  Not so  much.
  • Heard of food for thought? Well I’ve got some thoughts give me some food.
  • One of the symptoms of Lewy body dementia is hallucinations. I had one yesterday but it turned out I was dreaming that I was  hallucinating.
  • Digital divide, digital first, digital upload, middle  digital.
  • Life is what happens when you’re sitting in traffic.
  • I’m learning to feel deja vu on demand.
  • I know it sounds paranoid, but I’m paranoid.
  • I believe in God because I don’t want to have to learn quantum physics.
  • Think quickly, speak slowly
  • I don’t want to get out of my comfort zone.
  • Where is my comfort zone?
  • Eat early  and often.
  • Love is not saying you have a pimple on your nose. But do you have to say your sorry if you do?
  • Freedom is just another word for having left your cell phone at home.
  • Dylan said you got to keep on keeping on but  I’m not sure what I’m keeping on.
  • I like writing quotes from myself because I don’t have to fact check them.
  • A simile is like a word/ a metaphor is a word. That’s my analogy anyway.
  • Mark Twain said everything except for  those things Will Rogers said.
  • My guilty pleasure philosopher is Socrates because he was too lazy to write all of his sayings down. Instead, he enlisted Aristotle and Plato.
  • Steven Wright asks if you are in a spaceship going  the speed of light, what happens when  you turn the lights on.? I ask what happens if your going the speed of sound and you turn the radio on?
  • I see a lot of dogs walking people these days.

If  you like those, then, well, read them again. I got no more. At least right now.

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Bob Dylan — 516, 515, 514, 513, 512

ALBUMS:  Biograph (1985 5-record box); Infidels (1983); Slow Train Coming (1979); Blood on the Tracks (1974); Greatest Hits (1967)

MVC Rating: BIograph 5/$$$$$; Infidels 4.5/$$$$; Slow Train Coming $4.5 $$$; Blood on the Tracks 5.0/$$$$;; Greatest Hits 5.0/$$$$.

For a  private, quiet person,  Dylan is a man of many words.

Before I start this essay on Nobel winner and influential singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, I want to point out, once again we are talking about words. (A favorite topic of mine).

Dylan (L) with Bruce Springsteen. From Biograph booklet.

A friend asked me a long time ago  if I thought Dylan knew what he was talking about or is he just throwing words up on the wall. From experience I can say, he probably does and doesn’t.

Know what his words mean, I mean.

As with many writers, words are chosen for different things:  The sound of the word, the meaning of the word, the secondary meaning of the word, the meaning of the word in context with the other words. Writers make choices about what  words to use. Sometimes straight prose is what it says it is, like a recipe for a  casserole.  Add one cup of grated cheese.

Other times it’s more of an ink blot test and that’s where song lyrics can become part of an artistic presentation that means different things to different people.

Dylan was just better than almost anyone else at that.

By that, I mean the nimble word use that leaves you wondering, visualizing, thinking or letting it seep into your subconscious (for use later by your brain, for a dream perhaps). Of course it means something. It means something just by its very existence on the page. But it may mean nothing much or a whole lot. It may mean different things to different people. It may be Jabberwocky. That was Dylan’s art.

Of the big three: Elvis, the Beatles and Dylan, Minnesota-born Dylan aka  Robert Zimmerman, probably did the most to influence the song in pop music, just my opinion.

(And a quick acknowledgement here on race and gender. These  ‘Big 3’ —actually six when you add Beatles — white men climbed  a foundation laid by many black artists and female artists such,as Robert Johnson, Ella Fitzgerald,  Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Aretha Franklin, Carole King, Scott Joplin, Chuck Berry and so on. I picked the ‘Big 3’ based on the type of change and  measure of change they brought to modern pop music. Though blessed with talent, the Big 3’s influence was largely circumstantial — or, to paraphrase Dr. John —  they were in the right place at the right time.)

Dylan’s influence was greatest yet most subtle. It showed people that rock and pop songs could mean something. ‘Love Me Do’ to ‘A Day in the Life.’ His singing  had obvious influences on such artists as Tom Petty, Mark Knopfler, and even the Beatles.

But let me anticipate the argument against this pick.

Many casual Dylan fans or non-fans say Dylan could write some good  songs but that was about it, he couldn’t sing, he wasn’t a musical game-changer.

But that’s wrong.

I know I’m hypocritically and arbitrarily wiping away your right to your  own ink-blot interpretation,  but I’m using a writing device to debate or persuade you to my side.

Sure Dylan has a nasal vocal delivery that sounds like he gargled with Liquid Plumber. And then, periodically he would stop his rap and blow into a harmonica making honking, choo choo noises as a proper Woody Guthrie acolyte should.

But those are the pieces, what was the result of the whole. Dylan melded the words of the lyrics  into the music’s structure and tied it all up with phrasing.

From Biograh album booklet.

Dylan made the song reinforce the words. And his voice, my gosh, his voice was that of a dying man’s  last words backed by  guitar.

One of his best songs was ‘Like a Rolling Stone.’ Let’s deconstruct a verse or two:

Once upon a time you dressed so fine [up and down with his voice here like a sarcastic nursery rhyme]
Threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you? [Internal rhyming in this  1965 song sound like today’s rappers).
People call say ‘beware doll, you’re bound to fall’
You thought they were all kidding you
You used to laugh about {Yoooo Yooooost toooo — stringing it out for effect]
Everybody that was hanging out
Now you don’t talk so loud
Now you don’t seem so proud [steps down in lower timbre for a Dylan scold –‘seem to proud,’ he spits.
About having to be scrounging your next meal [How about his dragging the word ‘scrounging’ out just in case I haven’t humiliated you enough.]
How does it feel, how does it feel? [how does it feeeel….I can hear the Dylan imitators popping up in every pub and street corner).
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone
More memorable lyrics from the Nobel Prize for Literature winner:
 
My Back Pages
Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.

‘Positively 4th Street’ – 1965

Yes, I wish that for just one time/You could stand inside my shoes/You’d know what a drag it is to see you

Tangled Up in Blue

And later on as the crowd thinned out
I’s just about to do the same
She was standing there in back of my chair
Said to me “Don’t I know your name?”
I muttered somethin’ under my breath
She studied the lines on my face
I must admit I felt a little uneasy
When she bent down to tie the laces
Of my shoe
Tangled up in blue

Tangled up in blue  (more)

Then she opened up a book of poems
And handed it to me
Written by an Italian poet
From the thirteenth century
And everyone of them words rang true
And glowed like burnin’ coal
Pourin’ off of every page
Like it was written in my soul
From me to you
Tangled up in blue

The Times They are a Changin’

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin

The times they are a changin’

 Subterranean  Homesick Blues
Walk on your tip toes
Don’t tie no bows
Better stay away from those
That carry around a fire hose
Keep a clean nose
Watch the plain clothes
You don’t need a weather man
To know which way the wind blows
Oh, get sick, get well
MIKE NOTE: Is Subterranean HB rap? How about Tombstone Blues?

The answer my friend is blowing in the wind.

So that’s my  take on Dylan. For now. Of my many records listed at the top, I’d recommend Biograph, the 5-record box set. It is a very well done compilation containing everything from his classics to never before published gems. Liner notes in a separate booklet enclosed is by Cameron Crowe and many comments on the songs by the man himself. Any of the other albums I’d recommend highly. The Greatest Hits from his 1960s songs was my first introduction and my hook. Blood on the  tracks is just great, and Slow Train Coming and Infidels taken from his sometimes maligned ‘Christian’ conversion period are very good. (Actually Jann Wenner, Rolling Stone founder, called Slow Train Dylan’s finest work.)

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My Vinyl Countdown Updates — Hoops, summer reading, CD’s

UPDATE ON UPDATE: Am planning on making my train song announcement by end of day tomorrow. WEDNESDAY.

 

Coupla, three, four  things:

Mike practices his stand-up.

We are working on putting together the second  annual Mike’s Madness 3 on 3 basketball tournament to raise money and awareness for Lewy body dementia. Keep checking for details  here, but should be in and around late July.

I am publishing tomorrow on AL.com  an expanded stand-up comedy routine which I was playing around with in December. Watch for it. This could lead to an actual stand-up, or sit down  in front of real people. Here’s the link.

I’ve had so many bosses. Mostly good. One of the best, Michael Ludden hired me away from the Birmingham News in 1987 to work for the Orlando Sentinel. He was involved as an editor in a Pulitzer Prize winner in the investigative category about asset forfeiture, a pioneering work in its day done by friends/colleagues Steve Berry and Jeff Brazil.  Anyway he’s got a novel out that I’m going to read. This is saying something because Lewy body dementia  isn’t great for book-reading. You read five chapters and then pick it up two days later and, damn, where was I? So I have waited for some time off to dive into this one, which looks like a page-turner.

I have a beach trip coming up and I’m taking this and finishing this in between big grouper sandwiches and body surfing. Check his book out. It’s on Amazon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

CD’s. I do a vinyl record blog but while hanging out in my ‘Man Cave’/listening room today I started going through some boxes of CD’s I have a lot. Unfortunately I had many hundreds in giant jukebox CD player. So my CDs are all pulled out of their plastic cases and the paper inserts are pulled out as well. Bottom line:  a big mess of lots of CDs that needs an assembly line to get done.

Without the covers, the CD’s lose most their value. So, I”m thinking on what I should do here. All the while maintaining my LP countdown.

Lastly I posted on AL.com  today the weekly Saturday countdown story here.

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A word with you

I am building words with letters pulling them from deep inside my head.

Flipping them out with my tongue, word sequences, nouns verbs adjectives: Words.

Stop it with a period when your thought is through.

But don’t stop too long  or you will lose you

-Mike Oliver-

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Ducks DeLuxe –517

ALBUM:  Don’t Mind Rockin’ Tonight (1978)

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$

In the liner notes it says pub rock was no cliche’ in those days.

I’m not sure when or if it has become  a cliche’ but this is pub rock by definition.

“Down in the swamp, Daddy put the bomp in my soul.” Don’t  know exactly what that means but ‘Daddy was a preacher.’ Later Mama,  a Texas lady, taught him how to jive.

This is a compilation of two albums. Kind of odd but that’s the way they did it because theirs was a short-lived pit stop on the way to other bands.

The band was Sean Tyla (later of Tyla Gang), Nick Garvey and  Andy McMasters, (both later of the Motors ), Martin Belmont (later with Graham  Parker and Rumour). Dave Edmunds was close friends and sometimes a producer.

There is feel-good rock and roll playing here: ‘Coast to Coast’ rocks like nobody’s business. ‘Fireball’ and ‘Love’s Melody’ stand out. Reminded me at  times of Danny and Dusty whom I earlier reviewed.

I  thought at first that  ‘Daddy put the Bomp’ was an early 1960s  cover of a song called “Who put the Bomp (in the rama  lama ding dong). But apparently it’s two different songs.  This came out while I was a senior in High School. Yep. It ages well, if not me. Also seems like this one may be a little collectible as it was a short-lived band that never got much promotion in the US.

Here’s an old Bomp song here by Chuck Prophet (of Green on Red). I think it’s a hybrid re-make of the 1961 version.   But  not sure.

Here’s Ducks Deluxe ‘Daddy put  the Bomp.’

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History of Journalism Part 2: from ‘socialist rag’ to ‘tool of the man’ (blog version)

People still want news.  People still complain about the messenger, sometimes focusing on that more than the actual news delivered.

In Alabama, where I started my professional career in newspapers in 1982, I was regularly hit with criticism from readers that me or my paper, the Birmingham News, were not to be believed because we were the liberal media. I’m not into labels and that’s part of the reason I’m writing about this, but I think most objective observers would describe the Birmingham News during the time period I was there 1982-1986 as a ‘conservative’ paper.

I left the News in ’86 to go work for the Orlando Sentinel in central Florida.

Same thing in Orlando. In the 1990s, the paper, the Orlando Sentinel, was often described by people I encountered as “socialist” and “left-wing.”

Rachel Maddow and Chris Mathews

Our key columnist at the time, was Charley Reese, a quixotic, quiet, friendly man with a national reputation who railed against Abraham Lincoln and praised Robert E. Lee.

It was said at the time that Pat Buchanan, a former Nixon speechwriter, once said Reese (RIP) was the only columnist farther right than himself.

I don’t even think it helped when I pointed out that at the time the Sentinel had endorsed Republican presidents for years.

But when I got to California it was a whole new ball game.

I became a ‘tool of the man’  and worked  for ‘big corporate media.’

For full version go here.

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The Drifters — 518

ALBUM: The Drifters, Their Greatest Recordings, the Early Years (1971)

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$

Dion and the Belmonts picked up a lot of big hits the Drifters did first: Drip Drop, Ruby Baby and Save the Last Dance for Me.

Dion and the Belmonts, reared in Italian neighborhoods of NYC, of course, were bringing black R&B influenced Doo-Wop to white audiences. These early years, the Drifters had the wonderful Clyde McPhatter. Over many years,the Drifters ended up being more of a franchise, with rotating quarterbacks.

Ultimately they recorded one of the best songs of that era and genre, Under the Boardwalk. I love that song. But I also totally enjoy the rawer R&B sounds from the early years represented here.

One song, the opening one on this album, didn’t get released until this collection in 1971. From 1954 a song from McPhatter had executives running for cover and stopping its release. The song was ‘333.’

Lyrics like this were why: “Good Times,  cheap wine, young chicks, so fine, there’s a whole lot of ecstasy, any time you fall in 333.” A little too hot for 1954.

Other hits for the Drifters in these early years include: Money Honey, Fools Fall in Love and There  Goes My Baby.

Their slyly subversive take on Irving Berlin’s ‘White Christmas’ sells nearly as many copies as Bing Crosby’s version, according to the liner notes. Their version of that classic Christmas song holds a firm spot in my Christmas rotation.

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Train songs, countdown and musical tastes

Train train, take me on out of this town. Man. There are a lot train songs I’m learning.

Catching regular blog readers up to date on a couple of things:

I first posted my train song list on my blog. Then I added some commentary and a concern and posted  my list  — same list –on AL.com.

In that last post I told readers I have been dissatisfied with my blog post list of train songs, namely the Grateful Dead’s ‘Casey Jones.’ Not a big Dead fan anyway,  and the performance by Jerry Garcia is lackluster and has ‘cocaine’ running all through it. So I made a call out for replacements. Based on emails, texts and comments from stories, here’s a list we can draw from to replace Casey Jones (unless there’s an outpouring of support for that Dead song?)

I am amazed at the quality and depth of the selections, these aren’t all of them, I had to do some pruning. But it is a good many.

I’m going to make the final decision, here are the suggestions and I will make a pick by the weekend.

  • “Love in Vain” Robert Johnson. The legendary blues guitarist who influenced Clapton and a legion of rock guitar slingers.
  • “Orange Blossom Special,” Johnny Cash.
  • Elizabeth Cotton or Pete Seeger, Freight Train. Cotton is an amazing woman. Check out this video.

  • Paul Simon’s “Train in the Distance.”
  • Aeorosmith “Train Kept a Rollin’ the rollicking  cover of old blues song, also done by the Yardbirds.
  • ‘Last Train to Clarksville’ by the Monkees.
  • The Nields’ “Train.” Leave it to my good friend Bob to come up with something I’ve never heard or heard of — and it’s a great piece by a female duo.
  • “Waitin’ for a Train” by Jimmie Rodgers, the Singing Brakeman, another legendary folk singer (complete with yodels).
  • “Peace Train” by Cat Stevens
  • City of New Orleans” The Arlo Guthriy version of the Steve Goodman song.
  • Syd Straw’s “The Train that Takes You Away.” Great, if not obscure, song.
  • Gary Clarke, Jr’s bluesy rocker, “When My Train Pulls In.” Audience loved him so much they serenaded him before  he launched in bluesy train song.

  • “Throw Mama From a Train — a Kiss a Kiss.” The Sandpipers. Funny funny. Thanks Marvin.
  • Nanci Griffith – 1) So Long Ago. 2) Southbound Train. Nanci has a few train songs in her and I like them all.
  • Janis Joplin – Me and Bobbi McGee. Um, this is possibly my favorite all time song. Not sure it’s a train song, though the protagonist is ‘headin’ for a train,  feeling nearly faded as my jeans.’ Kristofferson wrote. Found this video of an aging Kristofferson doing this — pretty amazing:

  • Eagles – Train Leaves Here This Morning – Pleasant. Not so sure the Dude would like it.
  • Gordon Lightfoot – Canadian Railroad Trilogy. Historic account of real event as Gordon liked to do.
  • Wreck of the Old 97. Classic country sung by Johnny Cash and  others.
  • Desperados waiting for a Train –Guy Clark (several other versions), including the aforementioned Nanci with Clark.
  • “The Train Song” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.
  • Chattanooga Choo Choo —classic, written by a songwriting duo while on a train called the Birmingham Special. Would have been a slam dunk if they named it the Birmingham Choo Choo. (Or, perhaps, not)>
  • “The Locomotion” original by LIttle Eva, babysitter for Carole King. Later Grand Funk Railroad.
  • And one reader says it would be a ‘travesty’ to get rid of Grateful Dead entirely so the reader suggested Dead renditions of “Big Railroad Blues” or Willie Fuller’s “Beat It On Down the Line,” either his original or their cover of it.
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History of Journalism Part 1, through eyes of 58-year-old lifer (blog version)

A different version of this is posted at AL.com. To see other columns and stories by Mike Oliver on AL.com  check here.

My headline probably should have been everything has changed and yet nothing has changed.

I’m talking about the news business.

I can’t believe the business model changed so much in my 35 years in the business. But not so difficult to see why  if you think about it.

Here’s the old business model in one long run-on sentence — because it just  seems to do a one sentence history. OK here it goes the biz model:

Chop down trees in Canada, take them to the mill and have them made into giant rolls of newsprint, ship the rolls to hundreds, thousands of newspapers where reporters were scraping together information by traveling to murder scenes, sitting through 8-hour court sessions, trying to get into closed meetings of public officials, rummaging through records, getting obituaries ready to publish, and then writing writing writing in somewhat coherent language before sending the stories on a deadline to editors who fiddled around with them a bit and then moved them on deadline to the folks who printed the stories using news presses, running off 10s of thousands of 30-page newspapers  with many dozens of articles written just hours ago, having  trucks to haul them away, to kids on bicycles who throw them in the yards of thousands or collectively millions of people, occasionally accidentally hitting a potted plant on the porch, breaking it into large clay pieces On the ground. Dirt.

Every day.

And the woman walks by the newspaper box drops in a quarter and pulls out a paper. And the man calls the subscription line to complain the paper was 20 minutes late. “How can I get my news before work if it’s late?”

Every day.

Hard to believe that business model failed.

I signed up for this business while the Titanic was in full luxury cruise mode — but I love it, old and new. We’re still proving a valuable service, I think.

Of course, news organizations were slow on the uptake. Profit margins of 20 percent and higher were common and seemingly fueled complacency.

This led to, what may later be seen as survival moves, or, in some cases overkill, laced with greed, as layoffs swept the industry and once giant  news organizations such as Tribune Co., MediaNews Group and Knight Ridder imploded.

Meanwhile reporters have always wrestled with new technology: beepers, portabubbles, trash 80s, video cameras the size of small Volkwagens and walkie-talkies bigger than bricks. These all gave way to hand-held devices that could do anything: take pictures with your phone?

Back in the day, they’d look at you funny if you  used your phone to take a picture, deadpanned comedian Norm McDonald while pretending to dial a rotary phone. “Stand still,” he said, dialing.

With my long career arc in the business I feel I have some perspective. I’m going to compare a day in the life of a reporter circa 1985 with now.

Here’s a typical day in a newsroom, old school vs. today.

OLD SCHOOL:  Early morning coffee, sausage and biscuit and gravy in the newspaper’s cafeteria. Or make your own crappy coffee in newsroom

TODAY: Early morning coffee, breakfast sandwich from Jacks or fancy coffee brought in from Starbucks or a militant coffee shop that makes you feel shame about your coffee decisions. NO CREAM WITH THAT! ONLY EMU MILK! The barista shouts. Or, of course, you can make your own crappy coffee in the newsroom.

OLD SCHOOL: Go to assigned seat adjacent to file cabinets stuffed so thick with documents the drawers don’t close. Turn on table-top video display terminal.

TODAY: Go to any empty desk you can find (hoteling) and set up company issued laptop or your own or both. The gear comes out of your company-issued backpacks, which smell bad because you left a banana in it last week.

OLD SCHOOL: Check the answering machine on your desk top telephone.

TODAY: Tweet. Check emails, Facebook.

BOTH: The meat and potatoes of the day was calling sources, meeting with sources. Interviewing by phone or in person, depending on how many stories you are juggling.

OLD SCHOOL: Trudge to the courthouse or whatever records depository you needed to pick up the material. Type up public records request  and send it via snail mail if the presumed to be public records are  withheld.

TODAY: Go online, get records. File public records request if needed — via e-mail.

BOTH: Write it up. Whether you still scribble in a pad or take a tape recording and use an app voice translator, it is retrieved information that you must now make sense of and tell readers what happened or is happening. Deadlines would be hard old school,  a specific time or times (depending on editions and page placement. ) Today deadlines are 24/7. The time deadline can often be NOW in this environment, depending on the story.

So as I said earlier, nothing has changed but everything has changed.

Rare to find a kid on a bicycle delivering the paper anymore.

And the trucks come to haul them away, to kids on bicycles who throw them in the yards of thousands or collectively millions of people, occasionally accidentally hitting a potted plant on the porch, breaking it into large clay pieces On the ground. Dirt. Rosebud.