Frieght train freight train going so fast!

[HEyHEY]

Holy shit...I just heard that tune for the first time since I finished grade one! My teacher used to sing it.

Anything you've never heard that you used to sing?

[ForrestGump]

1. Down at the station/early in the morning...

And, of course, "Morningtown Ride." Classic primary school song with the teacher on guitar (with macramé strap, of course).

Add in the Little Train That Could, and is there some kind of railway pattern here in youngsters' upbringing? Some ancestral memories of our Hobo forefathers?

Train I ride/sixteen coaches long...

[starroute]

2. Really, really old pop songs my parents sang me when I was tiny

Stuff that I think must have been popular about the time they were toddlers themselves, or even earlier. My father would sing me to sleep with "Ting ting a ling a ling, hearts on a string a string," which I think may have come from the Ziegfeld Follies or something similar.

My mother was fond of of "Funiculi Funicular," "In Days of Old When Knights Were Bold," and "Returning From Russia Two Grenadiers" (the song about a couple of Napoleon's soldiers limping home from Moscow.) Not to mention 20's novelty songs like "Barnie Google with the Goo-Goo-Googely Eyes," "Oh Katherina" ("Oh, Katherina, oh, Katherina / To keep my love you must be leaner / Learn to swim, join a gym, eat farina") and "In China Once There Lived a Man, His Name was Ibbity-Ibbity-San."

I've got a headful of 'em.

[OneBlueSky]

3. ever hear the original? . . . by Libba Cotton? . . .

the story, as told to me many years ago, was that Elizabeth (Libba) Cotton worked for a time as a housekeeper (or some domestic capacity) for Pete and Toshi Seeger . . . they were the ones who discovered she could play guitar, sing, and write songs . . . "Freight Train" was one of those songs, which has since been recorded innumerabable time by countless other artists . . . but the original, with her gravely voice and acoustic folk guitar, is still my favorite . . .

[SarahB]

4. Trains rule my existance.

Thomas in particular. We have a favorite video just devoted to train songs. Oh, yes. Trains.