Blue Collar Rail

So I’ve been meaning to write something sound related in regards to field recording, maybe a more in depth back story to some of the recent FX Libraries, but I stumbled on something the other day and thought it’d be cool to post it here.

I had completely forgot about it, but I was going through some old records and found something I had written as a bit of a prologue piece, kind of steeped in half subconsciousness, half-dream, floating somewhere between prose and poetry. Had to laugh a little as a lot of it involves a world of imaginary Trains. It was only fitting that I’d spend a couple of years recording the sounds of Train Life so maybe this was all sitting somewhere in the far recesses of the mind the whole time and I was just along for the ride.

One night last year I was out in Tehachapi, recording the rumbling Freights that run through downtown when an older man emerged from the darkness. With my headphones on I could hear his footsteps on the gravel rocks from a distance as he approached. He hardly paid any attention to me when he got closer, didn’t say a word, just a slow glance and then continued walking on and fading along the rails. I guess he could have been one of the folks from this world…

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we were all holding on, not for dear life or nothing, just a subtle hand on the shoulder, hearts not exactly on our sleeves, but out there , in the open, bruised a little, and maybe a few lies thrown in, for good measure as they say, but no real harm in them.  we had no use for gods or religions, but we had faith, and above all, we had stories, long-winded tales about all those places we’d never been. 

in a station wagon loaded down with the rear bumper dragging and the tailpipe scraping the yellow lines and everything we owned hanging out the window and the music loud and going somewhere but going awful slow, no rush, taking our time because time is all we had.  we were wrapped tightly around it all, riding the rails of slow moving rusted out freights that called mills and prison scenery and they made you remember everything you ever forgot…the union pacific…central and southern…faded on the sides of the cars, the names almost mythical like and you could hear the creak and crock and whine of the rust turning over on that iron in its sleep, the steam painting the skyline, fighting with the clouds to an even draw, and the truth is, maybe somewhere really was nowhere, you never really could tell, reality and all, but south felt like east and north felt like west…guess it was some sort of poor man’s limbo that most folks would call purgatory, but as low as were, we weren’t that far down.  

it felt good to be moving, not standing still, wind in the hair, the imagination big, the future bright, love lost and hoping for love found, and somewhere the good life on one of those stops…denver…minneapolis…sioux falls…detroit…philadelphia.  winter gave us all she had so we’d hit the bottle in our sleep, all huddled together in our wakeful blanket of dreams and we’d hear the conductor yelling out in the voice of a hardened angel from some other world, “Paradise, Last Stop!” though we knew there was no such place.  we’d long given up any idea of truth…all we wanted was a laugh.

we’d warm up those nights with beer and when that was gone we’d move to the whiskey and when we were done we’d look through the bottles with our squinted eyes to see if we could maybe find something we’d missed and then we’d toss them out the door, sometimes violently smashing them across the rocks and watching the broken glass shatter looking for hidden meanings in those jagged prisms.  other times we were gentle in our drunkenness and we’d toss the bottles softly into the white silence as we sang a song that echoed across the mountains and vacant lots and the notes would come back to us, breaking against their own weight, a soft tide of melody wavering back and forth to our youth and beyond our death and all those foreign places in between.  we were on the last of everything, but at least we were giving it a go, not locking ourselves down, not giving in, not folding our hands, but throwing all the chips in, and fuck if we knew what would come of it.  in the end, what it all came down to was, we were still alive, that much we were sure of, and as little as it was, as far as being something worthwhile to hold onto, it was enough.