Trackside two years ago during a 43-train weekend, while waiting for approaching trains, the song Life is a Highway kept going through my head. (A hit for Tom Cochrane, it was later covered by Rascal Flatts for the Cars movie.) So what did I do? Wrote some alternate lyrics while waiting for the next train, of course! How could I bend the lyrics to a train theme without breaking them? I related them to a model railway theme.
The drums, guitar, keyboards and catchy chorus conspired to produce some lyrics I would do something with someday - for now securely stashed in my scribbler. Would new lyrics help make this song more palatable to my wife, who had heard it 46 times during a school trip and therefore wanted to never hear it again? [Her recent response: "nope"] While driving, I usually like to...crank it.
Finally, a rainy day recording session revealed itself. Coupling the horn-hooks together, I assembled a consist that I would run in in front of my camera, while simultaneously singing (and I use the term loosely - perhaps voluntarily vocalizing would be a better term) the lyrics to a backup track playing from my nearby laptop. You'll notice the consist is not quite long enough to appear to be a cat chasing its tail, but neither did it stringline during the recording!
Without further adieu, I give you the listen-if-you-dare YouTube link to....
In case you can't hear the lyrics, drowned out by the clickety-clack of non-metal wheelsets, slack action in the horn-hooks or the whine of DC power, here they are:
IT RUNS THROUGH CITIES/IT RUNS THROUGH TOWNS/
SOMETIMES I WATCH IT GO ROUND AND ROUND/
I RUN IT NOW LIKE I RAN IT THEN/
I'LL GET IT FINISHED BUT DON'T KNOW WHEN/
FROM STAGING YARD OUT TO THE MAIN/
FREIGHT, PASSENGER AND UNIT TRAIN/
IT'S COOL DOWN HERE OUT OF THE HEAT/
I GO UPSTAIRS WHEN IT'S TIME TO EAT/
I JUST CAN'T LET IT GO/
WAITING FOR THE NEXT TRAIN SHOW/
I'LL BE THERE WHEN THEY LET US IN/
TELL THEM I'M A BUYER!
CHORUS:
MY MODEL RAILWAY/
I'M GOING TO RUN IT ALL NIGHT LONG/
MY [INSERT SCALE HERE] -SCALE RAILWAY/
I'M GOING TO RUN IT ALL NIGHT LONG/
I RUN IT WHEN IT SNOWS AND RAINS/
I BOUGHT SOME STUFF FROM RAPIDO TRAINS/
MY WIFE CAN HAVE IT WHEN I'M GONE/
A QUICK YARD SALE IT'LL ALL BE GONE/
I WORK ON SCENERY, I WORK ON TRACK/
ONE TIME I EVEN PUT OUT MY BACK/
SOMETIMES WE ARGUE AND WE FIGHT/
ABOUT THE IDEAL LAYOUT HEIGHT/
THERE WAS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN YOU AND ME/
I'M USING HORN-HOOKS STILL/
BUT YOU MOVED ON KADEE!
CHORUS AND FADE UNTIL THE VAN APPEARS
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