Another Diversion - Finding Passengers

Once I got my show title 'Ducks, Trains & Other Tracks' and a vague travelling and journeys theme I started rooting around for ways to generate new material. I had this idea of getting together a playlist of songs about trains or travel (okay, it was more of a diversion than an idea) and actually found quite a few on this subject in my CD collection - Downtown Train (Tom Waits), Train in the Distance (Paul Simon), The Coal Train Robberies (Elvis Costello), The Morning Train (John Prine) and Train in Vain (The Clash). I know that last one's probably a different kind of train but it is a great song...

Then, on an old freebie CD from WORD magazine I found a something that I'd missed on first hearing - Passengers by Stephen Emmer, a spoken word track with the voice supplied by Lou Reed and the words extracted from Paul Theroux's The Great Railway Bazar. I was so delighted to find this track - since I've been doing my sonic tinkerings (poems mixed with samples, loops and sound effects), I've been collecting spoken word songs and this is a terrific example of how to do it. It's got a great video to go with it too. The album it's taken from - Recitement - is well worth checking out. Stephen's used the voice of Allen Ginsberg and Richard Burton among other people! So, that afternoon was one diversion well worth taking...