February 6, 2009

I have skipped some, I know. I tried to stay on task but it's no use going backwards so I am moving forward. Today's exercise is Paul Simon's "Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance, everybody thinks it's true.."

Since I am a Paul Simon fan, I have heard these words over and over again. I often wondered at their meaning. For me the sound of a train in the distance means a lot of things. The sound evokes romanticized ideals of hopping a freight train and just leaving. In the night, the train slows down. It slows enough for you to actually jump onto a car, and just go, wherever you want to go. Where will it be?

The sound of a train in the distance can also mean travel of the highest order. One thinks of train travel of days long ago, when people would get all dressed up to go travelling on a train. There were sleeper cars, and dining cars and it was all so very elegant. Not so anymore, but isn't it nice to dream?

Fans of J.K. Rowling's work will think of a train in the distance and remember train station number 91/2. Fans of old westerns will think of train robberies and stories of when the train rails were being installed.

The sound of a train in the distance is true. It's real. It does seem odd that the line is that "everybody thinks it's true" instead of "..knows it's true" because it appears that maybe it isn't true. That it isn't what it is, which is, real.

We may never know what Mr. Simon meant when he wrote that line. Maybe I will someday have the honor of asking him. I'll put it out there like a train in the distance.