{"id":31400,"date":"2015-05-22T03:00:48","date_gmt":"2015-05-22T07:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=31400"},"modified":"2016-12-08T10:09:27","modified_gmt":"2016-12-08T15:09:27","slug":"al-stewart-trains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2015\/05\/22\/al-stewart-trains\/","title":{"rendered":"Al Stewart &#8211; &#8220;Trains&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"853\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/wn9NUmPV_Ts\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Published on 19 Mar 2013<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In the sapling years of the post-war world in an English market town<br \/>\nI do believe we travelled in schoolboy blue, the cap upon the crown<br \/>\nBooks on knee; our faces pressed against the dusty railway carriage panes<br \/>\nAs all our lives went rolling on the clicking wheels of trains<\/p>\n<p>The school years passed like eternity and at last were left behind<br \/>\nAnd it seemed the city was calling me to see what I might find<br \/>\nAlmost grown, I stood before horizons made of dreams<br \/>\nI think I stole a kiss or two, while rolling on the clicking wheels of trains<\/p>\n<p>Trains&#8230;<br \/>\nAll our lives were a whistle stop affair; no ties or chains<br \/>\nThrowing words like fireworks in the air, not much remains<br \/>\nA photograph in your memory, through the colored lens of time<br \/>\nAll our lives were just a smudge of smoke against the sky<\/p>\n<p>The silver rails spread far and wide through the nineteenth century<br \/>\nSome straight and true, some serpentine, from the cities to the sea<br \/>\nAnd out of sight of those who rode in style, there worked the military mind<br \/>\nOn through the night to plot and chart the twisting paths of trains<\/p>\n<p>On the day they buried Jean Jaures, World War One broke free<br \/>\nLike an angry river overflowing its banks impatiently<br \/>\nWhile mile on mile the soldiers filled the railway stations&#8217; arteries and veins<br \/>\nI see them now go laughing on the clicking wheels of trains<\/p>\n<p>Trains&#8230;<br \/>\nRolling off to the front across the narrow Russian gauge<br \/>\nWeeks turn into months and the enthusiasm wanes<br \/>\nSacrifices in seas of mud, and still you don&#8217;t know why<br \/>\nAll their lives are just a puff of smoke against the sky<\/p>\n<p>Then came surrender; then came the peace<br \/>\nThen revolution out of the east<br \/>\nThen came the crash; then came the tears<br \/>\nThen came the thirties, the nightmare years<br \/>\nThen came the same thing over again<br \/>\nMad as the moon, that watches over the plain<br \/>\nOh, driven insane<\/p>\n<p>But oh, what kind of trains are these, that I never saw before<br \/>\nSnatching up the refugees from the ghettoes of the war<br \/>\nTo stand confused, with all their worldly goods, beneath the watching guards&#8217; disdain<br \/>\nAs young and old go rolling on the clicking wheels of trains<\/p>\n<p>And the driver only does this job with vodka in his coat<br \/>\nAnd he turns around and he makes a sign with his hand across his throat<br \/>\nFor days on end, through sun and snow, the destination still remains the same<br \/>\nFor those who ride with death above the clicking wheels of trains<\/p>\n<p>Trains&#8230;<br \/>\nWhat became of the innocence they had in childhood games<br \/>\nPainted red or blue, when I was young they all had names<br \/>\nWho&#8217;ll remember the ones who only rode in them to die<br \/>\nAll their lives are just a smudge of smoke against the sky<\/p>\n<p>Now forty years have come and gone and I&#8217;m far away from there<br \/>\nAnd I ride the Amtrak from New York City to Philadelphia<br \/>\nAnd there&#8217;s a man to bring you food and drink<br \/>\nAnd sometimes passengers exchange a smile or two rolling on the humming wheels<br \/>\nBut I can&#8217;t tell you if it&#8217;s them or if it&#8217;s only me<br \/>\nBut I believe when they look outside they don&#8217;t see what I see<br \/>\nOver there, beyond the trees, it seems that I can just make out the stained<br \/>\nFields of Poland calling out to all the passing trains<\/p>\n<p>Trains&#8230;<br \/>\nI suppose that there&#8217;s nothing in this life remains the same<br \/>\nEverything is governed by the losses and the gains<br \/>\nStill sometimes I get caught up in the past, I can&#8217;t say why<br \/>\nAll our lives are just a smudge of smoke, or just a breath of wind against the sky<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Published on 19 Mar 2013 In the sapling years of the post-war world in an English market town I do believe we travelled in schoolboy blue, the cap upon the crown Books on knee; our faces pressed against the dusty railway carriage panes As all our lives went rolling on the clicking wheels of trains [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,62,7,237],"tags":[177],"class_list":["post-31400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-britain","category-europe","category-history","category-railways","tag-alstewart"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-8as","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31400"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36588,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31400\/revisions\/36588"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}