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Q. What do all those things in the subject heading have to do with one another?

A: Answer: we’re all linked by a new tune about a train.

Here’s the story:

As some of you already know, I have a new obsession: the Chicago Public Radio show “Sound Opinions,” which is broadcast locally on Tri States Public Radio, but which I tend to save as a podcast so I can listen to it while making the drive up to the Quad Cities to visit C-Nor.

Listening to this show—on which two respected rock critics review new albums, analyze old ones, and interview artists they think are worth your attention—is like my version of following sports. It’s hard to explain, but … I need rock/pop/music industry chatter and following-of-facts-and-analysis in my life the way Cubs and Cards fans seem to need theirs. (I couldn’t tell you who is playing in the World Series if my life depended on it, but ask me who is producing the next Regina Spektor album and well, I will either know or at least want to know.

Yes, this show is rock-nerd heaven.)

Anyway, driving back from Davenport on Sunday and catching up on a podcast, I have to admit I wasn’t overly excited when DiRogatis and Kott started their review of the Jay-Farrar/Benjamin Gibbard collaboration. This album, released in 2009, features music set to lyrics inspired by a Jack Kerouac novel. It’s called One Fast Move or I’m Gone: Music from Kerouac’s Big Sur.

Normally this kind of project would be up my alley; I mean, hello, English major-y enough? Like a lot of Farrar/Gibbard fans probably do, I’ve got both Uncle Tupelo and Death Cab albums in my stack and several Kerouac books on my shelves.

But,

1. I’m kind of so-so on the Jay Farrar front: he’s obviously got an incredibly unique voice, but I’m not sure I like the sound of it enough to listen to whole albums of it.
2. Even though I was obsessed with Kerouac during my late high school/early college days…well, the sincere awe I used to feel over Kerouac and the life he lived and the way he wrote has been tempered by the voice inside me that says, “Ok, how many women are you going to brag about screwing in this section?”
3. And on top of that, do we need another Picking-Up-Where-Dead-Hero-Left-Off Project? (“Hey Jay, ever heard of Mermaid Avenue? The name Jeff Tweedy ring a bell…?”)

However—and even though the critics on Sound Opinions seemed to agree with my issues about Farrar’s voice—they deemed it a “Buy It” record (out of “Burn It, Buy It, or Trash It”), and you can read more about that on the Sound Opinions web site. (You have to scroll down to footnote #7).

And then they played a song from it, and my ears perked up—and now the album is on my Amazon wishlist.

The song, “California Zephyr,” describes, and is named after, a certain country-crossing vessel which has an important local tie and also plays a big role in my life. (It also pays homage to a song by the same name written by Hank Williams, I think.)

The train in the tune:

The real-life California Zephyr route stops in nearby Galesburg and Burlington, Iowa, and of course at Union Station in Chicago, before heading westward to cross the plains and then head for the Rocky Mountains.

I have taken the California Zephyr out west a small handful of times. And while it may be a bit schmaltzy and sentimental, I consider my trips on this train to be some of the most awesome and important moments in my life.

When I was a kid, the summer after sixth grade, my mom planned a trip for us to visit her brother and his family on the west coast. My dad decided that we were going to do things the old-fashioned (i.e. cheaper, and non-up-in-the-air) way.

Please let me stress what this means: my family and I rode a train, sitting next to each other for several days in a row, all the way from Burlington, Iowa to Seattle, Wash.

(And yes, we are still speaking to each other.)

I’ll save the tales of that trip for another day. But allow me to say I remember it vividly and always will. I got to see the world through those train windows, and through watching the actions of so many other train-travelers from all over the map.

Later, when I was in college, I got on the Zephyr in Burlington and rode out to Winter Park, Colo. (And yes, both my mom and my sister thought I was crazy for choosing to take the train again. Apparently I have a higher tolerance for not bathing, and for sleeping upright in a coach seat, then most.)

In 2004 or so, I also took the train from Galesburg to White Fish, Mont., to meet my family at Glacier National Park, only to discover that it was on fire (but yes, that too is another story.)

All of this is to say, I was delighted to find that one of the songs on the Kerouac-inspired album captures the feeling of sitting in a lounge car, watching the fields and lonely towns and cows and streams and pickup trucks go by, taking in something about American life that feels like it might not always be there. (And yeah, really wishing for a shower.)

What about you? Farrar fan? Death Cab lover? Fan of taking the train despite lavatory facilities being a bit lacking? Know any more about the Hank Williams original? Leave me a comment below.

The song features Gibbard alone (without Farrar), and here’s what I found when I Googled the lyrics:

Up the Hudson Valley across New York State to Chicago then the Plains
All so easy and dreamlike crashing the salt flat daybreak
I hear “I’ll Take You Home again Kathleen” sad fog winds out there to blow
Across the rooftops of eerie old hangover San Francisco

Now I’m transcontinental 3000 miles from my home
I’m on the California Zephyr watching America roll by
Now I’m transcontinental 3000 miles from my home
I’m on the California Zephyr watching America roll by

I’ve hit the end of my trail can’t even drag my own body
I’ve been driven mad for three years
Too much fame keeps a body busy and the mind full of tears
Terrified by that sad song across rooftops
mingled with the lachrymose cries of the salvation army meeting
on the corner saying, “Satan is the cause of it all”

Now I’m transcontinental 3000 miles from my home
I’m on the California Zephyr watching America roll by
Now I’m transcontinental 3000 miles from my home
I’m on the California Zephyr watching America roll by

Tags: Galesburg, Illinois, Midwest, Rock and/or Roll, Rural People Read Too

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 at 9:18 am and is filed under Pop Culture Pontifications. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.