geoLibro.org

This week it’s still not a Statler Brothers track. Instead, it’s a bunch of upstate NY kids who sorta recreate the kinds of harsh rusticism that The Statlers glossed over musically (but not always lyrically). It’s The Felice Brothers and “Penn Station” from their recent Yonder is the Clock release. So obviously this one will pin to Penn Station, but not just because it mentions it. It’s truly (albeit allegorically) about Penn Station. Protagonist (P) has, in fact, died in Penn Station and as he lays there on the cold tile of one of the restroom floors [~shudder~], with five dollars and a dead cell phone, he ponders how peaceful it is when a man’s past can no longer torture him. And no doubt if you’re knocked out flat on the floor of a train station john you’ve got some torture in your past.

Anyway, while it’s peaceful now, P faces a crossroads, of sorts (is, in fact, in a crossroads, both literally and figuratively). On track #7 there’s a train to heaven. Nice, right? Flatlined on the tile in a train station tank, tongue probably rolled out onto the dank, moldy grout, the guy hasn’t been so bad that he hasn’t lost his shot at that northbound train. The problem is that there’s another train a-comin’ (n apostrophe because it’s more country or more soulful):

But a faster train’s coming near
That the devil engineers, oh lord
That the devil engineers

And that’s…a problem.