gement: (Default)
[personal profile] gement
Usually I work to a pretty scattershot collection of music. I have a Leonard Cohen-centric collection of brooding songs that damp my anxiety but can lead to a dreamlike and unproductive calm. I have my SuperHappySuper mix, heavy on the technopop, which gives me a burst of energy but can spike anxiety.

I want something methodical, with just enough energy to hook me and drive me forward. Railroad buildin' music. Any suggestions?

Sideline: here's one of my slow playlists, Artists are Mortal, which I started out of thematic curiosity, but quite enjoy listening to. (I skip Boy and His Frog because I don't like crying at work.) http://www.songmeanings.net/mixtape/tape/2049/ "Famous creators have both public and private lives and deaths. When their fans try to describe or imagine the private reality, they build on the public myth. Here are eleven myths and memorials about the flesh and experience of fascinating people. "

Date: 2011-02-07 06:30 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] wcg.livejournal.com
Gordon Lightfoot's Canadian Railway Trilogy. (Link to YouTube video)

Date: 2011-02-07 06:39 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gement.livejournal.com
Yay! Thanks! Yes, that and John Henry and Sixteen Tons are already on my mind.

Date: 2011-02-07 06:42 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] wcg.livejournal.com
And lots of Johnny Cash train songs, I'd bet.

Date: 2011-02-07 06:49 pm (UTC)
annissamazing: Ten's red Chucks (Default)
From: [personal profile] annissamazing
We may have different ideas about this kind of music. It's what I like to think of as "traveling music"; songs that feel like movement. I like "Mess" by Ben Folds Five (it's sad, but has a flow I adore), "Simon Zealots" from Jesus Christ Superstar, "I Know What I Am" by Band of Skulls, and... oh man. I've forgotten the name of the last one. It's a tune from "Big River".

Don't look up "Mess" on YouTube. There's only one video (fan-made) and it's deserves massive trigger warnings.

Date: 2011-02-07 06:58 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gement.livejournal.com
I'm discovering the reason I think of it as railroad buildin' music is that a remarkable number of songs about work are songs about the work of transportation. I'm starting a second playlist.

I know Big River and will think of the song you mean in a minute. I hear the rhythm in my head.

Date: 2011-02-07 07:10 pm (UTC)
grum: (Default)
From: [personal profile] grum
Sixteen Tons? There's a fabulous a capella version of it, drat it's on Pandora and I have no idea who did it.

Um.. It's not railroad building but it is working together to do the impossible, what do you think of Mary Ellen Carter?

Date: 2011-02-07 07:17 pm (UTC)
annissamazing: Ten's red Chucks (Default)
From: [personal profile] annissamazing
"Muddy Water"!

Date: 2011-02-07 07:31 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gement.livejournal.com
I don't know it, but I'll look it up. My original hope was to find music with the rhythm and intensity peculiar to railroad songs. I'm amused at how many actual railroad songs there are to answer the call.

Date: 2011-02-07 07:57 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gement.livejournal.com
Good lord, Process Man. That's goin' on the "Working Hard" playlist right now. You're right, GBS's entire catalog is probably what I need right now.

Date: 2011-02-07 08:22 pm (UTC)
grum: (Default)
From: [personal profile] grum
Aah, then it probably won't work as it's definitely in the Sea Chanty realm.

Have you any experience with the songs of wool waulking? (where waulking = pounding the snot out of woven fabric in order to full it) I don't have any examples, but loved the little bits I heard at a sheep festival a few years back, they have, in my mind, a similar intensity to the rail songs in that they're designed to help a group of people keep their energy up during rather laborious manual labor.

Date: 2011-02-07 08:23 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] littlemystories.livejournal.com
Rockapella did a nice version of Sixteen Tons.

Date: 2011-02-07 08:26 pm (UTC)
grum: (Default)
From: [personal profile] grum
I love The Chemical Worker's Song. Thanks for reminding me it existed!

Date: 2011-02-07 08:57 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gement.livejournal.com
Sea chanties work too. They're work songs. Hell, I just discovered the TMBG song "Self Called Nowhere" has the right pounding hook to do the job. I am subject-agnostic in my pursuit of the right rhythm.

Date: 2011-02-07 10:25 pm (UTC)
annissamazing: Ten's red Chucks (Default)
From: [personal profile] annissamazing
Oooooh! "Self Called Nowhere" held the title as my favorite song for several months back in '97. I *adore* that song. If you've got the right setup, you can hear certain parts of the song shift speakers from left to right and back again near the end. It's trippy.

Date: 2011-02-08 02:43 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] zzyzx-xyzzy.livejournal.com
oooh. Along similar lines maybe a lot of Cordelia's Dad would fit. "Idumea," "Katy Cruel," "Granite Mills", I can't find any good youtube links.

I tend to

More GBS

Date: 2011-02-08 07:57 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cinnamonteal.livejournal.com
"River Driver"

Date: 2011-02-08 09:46 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] memegarden.livejournal.com
I recommend Huey Lewis and the News, and Carmina Burana. I consider them both excellent housecleaning music.

Date: 2011-02-11 09:04 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
Heartily recommend the Cure, 'Another Journey by Train' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5JPNhtaCj4

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