# Music inspired by trains (Pacific 231 and Different Trains)



## timothyjuddviolin (Nov 1, 2011)

If you have never heard Pacific 231 or Steve Reich's Different Trains here are two great pieces you should get to know:

Different Trains


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

there are tons in every genre.
One of the most famous, composed by Villalobos





Deshevov - Rails





Langaard - String quartet 2 (in the second movement called Disappearing train)





And even if it's not classical music, there's Daybreak express that is one of Ellington's masterpieces:


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## Perotin (May 29, 2012)

Nyman wrote MGV (Musique à Grande Vitesse) (1993) commissioned by the 1993 Festival de Lille to celebrate the inauguration of the Paris-Lille TGV Service.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Alkan:"Le Chemin de Fer" (1847) 




Lumbye:"Copenhagen Railway Galop" 




Turco & Denza:"Funiculi Funicula" 



 (for the Vesuvius railway)


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

First thing I think of is Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison Blues - but I have to mention:






Don't click "play" unless you want to hear some of that new southern gospel. Decent musicianship... but goodness gracious does anyone south of David Meece have any creativity? (Sorry. This is a sore point with me. My parents love this stuff and I have to listen to oodles of it every time I visit.)


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Johnny Cash' song "City Of New Orleans" is about a train of that name.
Also J.Strauss JR's "Excursion Train Polka".


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

More from the country/folk - Rock Island Line (which I love), Hey Porter (which I don't), and Wabash Cannonball.


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## Musician (Jul 25, 2013)

Here is a performance of one of my pieces its simply called 'The Train'...


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## cwarchc (Apr 28, 2012)

I always think of this
Kraftwerk Trans Europa Express


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

another non classical but classic example: meade lux lewis and his honky tonk train


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

science said:


> Goodness gracious does anyone south of David Meece have any creativity? (Sorry. This is a sore point with me. My parents love this stuff and I have to listen to oodles of it every time I visit.)


Don't get me started. But at least they have a live band. The gospel groups down in my parts use tracks. I don't like my music in a can.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I don't know if this is gospel or country, but it's about a train.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Some of these have been mentioned before, here are some links.

Bill Monroe - Orange Blossom Special

Willie Nelson - City of New Orleans

Johnny Cash Hey Porter

Casey Jones

Wreck of the Old 97


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## Kleinzeit (May 15, 2013)

Nightride and Sunrise by Sibelius. 

I know Sibelius said a lot of things about his music. About this, for instance, Wiki sums it up: "Sibelius gave different accounts of the inspiration for this music. One, told to Karl Ekman, was his first visit to the Colosseum in Rome in 1901. Another account, given in his later years to his secretary Santeri Levas, was a sledge ride from Helsinki to Korvo "at some time around the turn of the century", during which he saw a striking sunrise."

But the motoric music in this always makes me think Sibelius experienced his satori on a train ride. And that's just how he would have gotten around Europe & Russia the most, in the years around 1908. My money's on Train Song.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Rodion Shchedrin ~ Anna Karenina (Anna's death, @ 6'36'')





Penguin Cafe Orchestra ~ Numbers 1 - 4





Poulenc ~ Promenades; no. 8, _En chemin de fer_


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## waldvogel (Jul 10, 2011)

One of Elvis Presley's first songs - a cover of Mystery Train.


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## jtbell (Oct 4, 2012)

John Adams: "Judah to Ocean," from "John's Book of Alleged Dances". OK, it's not actually a train, but rather a streetcar (tram), the N - Judah line in San Francisco, along which Adams once lived.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

jtbell said:


> John Adams: "Judah to Ocean," from "John's Book of Alleged Dances". OK, it's not actually a train, but rather a streetcar (tram), the N - Judah line in San Francisco, along which Adams once lived.


THose Alleged Dances are pure fun! In mentioning them, you've reminded me of Samuel Barber's evocation of a tram / trolley in _Knoxville, Summer of 1915_


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

I'll just leave this here... (seizure warning)


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## cwarchc (Apr 28, 2012)

Another non classical, but from a master of his craft


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Lyrics by W H Auden
Music by Benjamin Britten


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Tenuous, maybe - but how about Richard Rodney Bennett's soundtrack to Murder on the Orient Express?

And I have to include this psychedelic gem from 1967:


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

*Tristram Cary* did an electroacoustic piece called _Steam Music for Quad Tape _which uses and blends actual recordings of the locomotives. I talked about it here as part of a post on a cd I got of his music.

*Edith Piaf's* song L'Homme à la moto is about a motorcyclist who is cruel to his girlfriend and terrorises a town, but in the second last verse Piaf put in a recording of a steam train, since the brute meets a sticky end in a collision with a train.

There's also Little Train of the Caipira by *Villa-Lobos *from Bachianas Brasileiras #2. A bit more quirky perhaps than the juggernaut that Honegger's classic piece presents?


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## Guest (Sep 18, 2013)

And not to forget *Pierre Schaeffer*'s _Etude aux chemins de fer_.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

elgars ghost said:


> Tenuous, maybe - but how about Richard Rodney Bennett's soundtrack to Murder on the Orient Express?
> 
> And I have to include this psychedelic gem from 1967:


Trouble with the Electric Prunes - they go right through you!


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

I remember Chas McDevitt and Nancy Whiskey in the 50's with "Freight Train,Freight Train Going So Fast" It's so catchy.
Also "Last Train To San Fernando", Johnny Duncan and the Bluegrass Boys.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Railroad Bill

This Train

Marrakesh Express

I Heard That Lonesome Whistle Blow

It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry


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## spradlig (Jul 25, 2012)

Sorry if this is a repeat:

Villa-Lobos: Little Train of Caipira from Bachianas Brasileiras No. 2


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

In the folk genre: The Midnight Special


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## jim prideaux (May 30, 2013)

Randy Newman-Dixie Flyer-autobiographical, the lyrics are exceptional as the man recounts the journey he and his mother took from California to New Orleans during WW2-dad was away 'fighting the Germans in Italy'-so evocative it is as if you are watching a film-in case you have not got the message-give it a listen!
Ravel-La Valse - thats no dance, its a great big steam train leaving a central European station circa 1920-Mo got it mixed up!
Red Streamliner-Little Feat
Train in Vain-The Clash-not literally, but why pass up a chance to mention the last great British band!
:tiphat:


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

John Adams: Hoodoo Zephyr (not to be missed!)





Also, "Down by the Station" of course.


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## sangg (Mar 22, 2014)

I've been working on the railroad concerto


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

*Altoona Freight Wreck*

*Wreck O' The 97 *("It warn't 38, it was old 97") ("She came done the mountain, doing 90 miles an hour, and her whistle broke into a scream") ("He was found in the wreck, his hand on the throttle...")

Jeez, I'm having a flashback here.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

Ah, my favorite work about trains:
Steve Reich - Different Trains


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## SuperTonic (Jun 3, 2010)

When I was learning to play the Hindemith Sonata for Solo Cello, Op. 25, No. 3, my cello teacher told me that Hindemith wrote the entire thing in one sitting while traveling by train and that some of the rhythmic figures in the sonata were inspired by sounds and movements of the train. I haven't been able to verify that independently though, so take it for what it's worth. The work does have some very rhythmical sections that could be called "motoric".


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

No one's mentioned Rhapsody in Blue yet? According to Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue was also inspired by the noises of the train he was riding on one day. I don't think I can do any better at describing it than Gershwin himself:



> It was on the train, with its steely rhythms, its rattle-ty bang, that is so often so stimulating to a composer - I frequently hear music in the very heart of the noise.... And there I suddenly heard, and even saw on paper - the complete construction of the Rhapsody, from beginning to end. No new themes came to me, but I worked on the thematic material already in my mind and tried to conceive the composition as a whole. I heard it as a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America, of our vast melting pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our metropolitan madness. By the time I reached Boston I had a definite plot of the piece, as distinguished from its actual substance.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Louis Andreissen:
_Passeggiata in tram in America e ritorno_ (text by Dino Campana)
in three orchestrations

1998: voice (female), flute, horn, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, amplified violin, double bass, piano
1999: voice, violin and piano
2001: voice, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, electric guitar, electric violin, double bass, piano, percussion


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