I’ve posted before about railways, locomotives and music…my friend and colleague, Abbie, recommended a spotify playlist of railway machine-noise. It’s a kind of ambient drone, and a sort of music.
There’s something of this in the kling-klang soundtrack of the first section of the Jean Mitry film, Pacific 231…
I’m going to develop a thread of posts called Music of the Rails over the next academic year. Hopefully this will explore some of the connections between popular music and the railway, especially in relation to the US…that will be Delta Blues, Big Band, Swing Music, Country and Soul etc..
I’m planning a sort of musical railroad trip between New Orleans and Chicago…via Memphis, Nashville and Detroit. That’s the route that emancipate slaves took to make new lives in the north.
Just listening to Johnny Cash right now.