Railway lines and artist photos
Posted by: Paper Plane on 10 February 2014
The above is just (another) example for use as an illustration.
Have you noticed how many promo pics and album covers feature the artist(s) standing on a railway line?
Why? Is it a staggering lack of imagination or some deep psychological theme?
steve
I've noticed it,
It is psychological, works on me anyway : )
The image implies that Its a musical "journey"
The clue is in the title. There is a heritage of trains and blues music.
Deep down in louisiana close to new orleans
Way back up in the woods among the evergreens
There stood a log cabin made of earth and wood
Where lived a country boy named johnny b. goode
Who never ever learned to read or write so well
But he could play a guitar just like a ringin' a bell
(Chorus)
Go go
Go johnny go go (x4)
Johnny b. goode
He used to carry his guitar in a gunny sack
Oh sit beneath a tree by the railroad track
Oh the engineers would see him sittin in the shade
Strummin with the rhythm that the drivers made
Oh n' people passin' by they would stop and say
'Oh my but that little country boy could play'
(Chorus)
His mother told him 'some day you will be a man
And you will be the leader of a big ol' band
Many people comin' from miles around
To hear you play your music when the sun go down
Maybe some day your name will be in lights sayin
'Johnny b. goode' tonight
(Chorus)
People starving and thirsting, grain elevators are bursting
Oh, you know it costs more to store the food than it do to give it
They say, "Lose your inhibitions, follow your own ambitions"
They talk about a life of brotherly love
Show me someone who knows how to live it
There's a slow, slow train comin' up around the bend
I'm sittin' in the railway station
Got a ticket for my destination
On a tour of one night stands
My suitcase and guitar in hand
And every stop is neatly planned
For a poet and a one man band
Homeward bound
I wish I was
Homeward bound
Home, where my thought's escaping
Home, where my music's playing
Home, where my love lies waiting
Silently for me
[from wiki] ...It is uncertain exactly where the song was written: in an interview with Paul Zollo for SongTalk Magazine, Art Garfunkel says that Simon wrote the song in a railway station "around Manchester" while in an earlier interview for Playboy Magazine Simon stated that the railway station was in Liverpool. It is likely, however, that it was written at Widnes railway station during a long wait for a train, when traveling back from Widnes, where he had been playing; a commemorative plaque is displayed on the wall of the Liverpool-bound waiting room.