Frazz by Jef Mallett for December 11, 2024

I know of at least three different time signatures for famous “train based” songs.

Solve this one: “Down around the corner, Half a mile from here, You see them long trains runnin’ And you watch them disappear. Without love Where would you be now?”

Walmart Tee-shirt?

3/4 time … Can you train your engineer to do a waltz?

I can’t think of anything a steam (or diesel) locomotive does in threes. I think Frazz is completely off the mark on this.

And I’d let that lonesome whistle, blow my blues away.

One of the essentials of county music.

“There’s never a train when you need one” – Amanda Shires

Why on earth would you do a train song in three-quarter time? I can’t thing of anything more determinedly 2/4 than the sound of a train.

…SOOOUUUUULLL Train!

fusilier, who is that old

James 2:24

That’s 6/8 time

[singing] Pardon me boys, is that the Chattanooga Choo-choo?

Cheryl’s going home.

“I was dancing, with my darling, to the Santa Fe Waltz….”

That’s an odd suggestion, but funnier, I guess. I would have thought a simple 2/2.

May I recommend The Blue Train, a Johnny Cash compilation/album.

I need to “Take Five” while I sort out my ‘train’ of thought. 5/4 time signature chug chug, maybe triplets on the drum kit a la Toto’s Rosanna shuffle or Led Zep’s Fool in the Rain.

All along the southbound odysseyThe train pulled out at KankakeeAnd rolls along past houses, farms and fieldsPassin’ trains that have no namesAnd freight yards full of old black menAnd the graveyards of the rusted automobilesGood morning, AmericaHow are you?Say don’t you know me? I’m your native sonI’m the train they call the city of New OrleansAnd I’ll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done

Or, Riding in a freight train speeding through the night, Hobo Bill was Taking his last ride.

Pardon me, lad…is that the Chatanooga Choo-Choo, On track number nine, well you can give me a shine..???

Time, distance & speed, add heading and you dead reckoning.

And the train conductor said “Take a break Driver 8…”

I hear the train a comin, It’s rollin round the bend E7 I ain’t seen the sunshine since, I don’t know when A E I’m stuck in Folsom Prison, And time keeps draggin on B7 E But that train keeps a rollin on down to San Antone

It is..a long train running.

For those keeping track at home, this is Strip #5 this year alluding to anything at all musical, IE, something related to Frazz’s supposed background as a successful songwriter. Odds are looking dim that we’ll hit half a dozen before the end of 2024, which would make this a typical year.

Paging Doctor Sheldon Cooper.

Late to this discussion because of a long day:

99.9% of steam locomotives ever built would have sounded, or still sound, in 4/4 time—two cylinders, two exhaust beats each per revolution of the drive wheels, and quartered opposite one another, so it’s the classic “CHUG-chug-chug-chug” sound immortalized by the Little Engine That Could’s “I THINK I Can…..” (There is not actually any reason one beat per drive wheel revolution should be louder than the other three; the effect is mostly mental, and ever-so-slight irregularities in the entire drive train will lead the ear to detect that it’s a constant repetition of 4 strokes.) Bigger locomotives with 2 sets of drive wheels and cylinder pairs still carry on this 4-beat syndrome, even if the 2 “engines” mismatch into a mess of offbeat noise.

There exists an exception: Certain specific models of steam locomotives had/have three sets of cylinders and valve gear, with a third cylinder between the frames and outside cylinders driving a cranked main driver axle. Such locomotives were exceedingly rare in North America—think in terms of Mazda’s rotary engines or Audi’s inline-five-cylinders—but were built and used in countries such as Britain and Germany. Their sound is a ever-so-slightly offbeat six exhausts/“choos” per drive wheel revolution; if The Little Engine That Could were a three-cylinder locomotive the phrase would be a more rushed “I-THINK-I-can-do-it, I-THINK-I-can-do-it…..” The most famous examples of three-cylinder locos would be the “world-famous” London & North Eastern 4472 “Flying Scotsman,” or its slightly later A4-class brethren, particularly LNER 4468 “Mallard” which still hold the world record for officially recorded speed by a steam locomotive. Also: Shay geared locos has three cylinders on a drive shaft and had a 34 exhaust sound.

So either Frazz doesn’t know a danged thing about what steam locomotives sound like (he shouldn’t be old enough to), or he’s misleading and corrupting Caulfield…….