"They Took The Midnight Subway Going Nowhere"

Admittedly, the boys had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  I stayed home with Madeleine, since she had something of a fever, but Amy and the boys went to their cousins' house for an extended family get-together, and I heard nothing but rave reviews about the holiday... with one exception.  Ian didn't like having to sing a particular song, and I had an interesting time talking to him figuring out just what this offending tune might be.

The cousins in question are extremely musical - very talented, both vocally and instrumentally, and very enthusiastic about making music.  I always enjoy the music thing with them, but I'm old and not too hip.  Ian told me something to the effect that he was compelled, against his will, to come upstairs and sing a long song that wasn't very good where the words didn't really rhyme - some song about "the city."  I suspect that his main point of dissatisfaction was that he probably had to tear himself away from the game room in the basement, with its video games and foosball table and all kinds of other wonders - not to mention a couple of particularly engaging older cousins.  Perhaps the recruitment factor was also part of the disgruntlement - I suspect that Amy was especially eager to get him upstairs singing this spectacular song, and I, too, had a parent who liked to organize the children into bouts of soulful song at parties.  But I really wanted to figure out what this outspokenly substandard song might be.

So I pressed Ian, who luckily has good recall and a mind for detail.  So he started churning out a few keywords to help me reconstruct the original artifact:  "boy," "girl," "subway," "going nowhere."  Suddenly I got it:  "Just a city boy, born and raised in South Detroit, they took the midnight train going anywhere..." [I especially liked the way that "going anywhere" registered in Ian's memory as "going nowhere"...] Indeed, Ian was pressed willy-nilly into a romp down the Memorabilia Lane of us oldsters, the middle-aging Children of the 80's.  And the Musack of our progressively-graying generation is typified by Journey.  Much the way that Peter Paul and Mary was inflicted on us, in our youth, by old people in a similar state of we're-still-so-cool denial.  

I guess Steve Perry has a point:  "Some will win, some will lose.  Some of them will sing the blues."  Whether they want to or not.

(November 28, 2013)