Obsessive-Compulsive? Me?

Since reading, somewhere, the other day that the tune and chorus of Charlie on the MTA* were based on The Wreck of the Old 97 I of course had to find that song, which I located at The Blue Ridge Institute. (I don't know how, stumbled in through some back door.)

I've spend the last few days going back and listening again to The Wreck of the Old 97, feeling that learning it might be nice, and then today wandered off amongst some of their other offerings. Reading the backstory for The Vance Song (lyrics here, audio clip at the top) I didn't think I would like it, partly because it says the murderer composed it and sang it before he was executed. But the guy they recorded singing it - wow. He sounds like he's 180 years old and came from Ireland when he was 15 and he was just amazingly evocative. It sounds like it was recorded in someone's kitchen after they'd been drinking. It made me want to write my own death song. I may have to put off dying for a while 'til I can get the recording right.

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*I don't think I made a note about it at the time, but I had to listen to every different version of Charlie on the MTA that I could find after Copperbadge made mention in his steampunk AU story The Dead Isle of the main character singing "Charlie on the MTA" to amuse himself when he's in prison. I hope he hasn't decided to change that, but I don't think he will, as it's a damned fun song. Okay, maybe I really want to learn all of Charlie rather than Old 97.

I'm amused by a bunch of things about "Charlie":

-It's often billed as "Irish music" by people posting it on YouTube. It seems to get covered by Irish bands quite often, but it's pretty firmly American music, I would say.

-In the lyrics is a mention of Scollay Square station (often incorrectly transcribed as "Scully Square Station") - which ceased to exist in 1962. Of course the song was originally composed in 1949, so it did exist at that time, but, as Eor pointed out, it does seem very New England that a place which no longer exists and is so forgotten that people misspell it is still immortalized in a song that's still popular and riffed on. In the Dropkick Murphy's Skinhead on the MBTA the Skinhead's wife hands him a grenade through the window at "Scully Square Station". (I can't quite forgive them for changing 'unlearned' - which is supposed to rhyme with 'return' - to 'unknown.' Why? Yes, that's my OCD showing through.)

-Watch the Heebie-Jeebies version! :)

-Ages ago Eor and I had both read a story which we associated with "Charlie on the MTA." We both thought we'd read it in Asimov's within the last 30 years or so, but it turns out it was A Subway Named Mobius, by A. J. Deutch, which came out in 1950 (just after "A Streetcar Named Desire," naturally.) So, a year after the original "MTA" song was written, but before it was really popularized by the Kingston Trio as "Charlie on the MTA" in 1959. It's a pretty cool story, but there's no character named Charlie in it. There ought to be. Professor Turnbull, in fact, the guy they still can't find at the end, his first name is given as Merritt - it should have been Charles. (Or, could someone please write me a spoof where it's "Merritt Turnbull on the MTA"?)

-Yes, the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority's travel card IS called the Charlie Card because of this song, it's THAT much a part of Massachusetts culture.

Memo to myself...

Make sure that when you are bedding down guests for the night you tell them what time you are getting up (and set your alarm and stick to it, even if it's a day off) but also let them know which are their towels and washcloths for the next morning. The people who you least expect to ever get up and take a shower will be the ones who decide to do just that. I should have learned this lesson when Hawk did it to me a few years ago, so I was unsurprised but still kicked myself when Mom did it this morning - they used my hand towel, because 'that's the size of towel that is given out in the public baths in Korea,' they both said. Hawk was more obnoxious about it, because he's a little brother - "I took your face towel and dried my ass with it!"