Sillouette In Blue

I boarded my first sleeper car tonight. Union Station in Chicago. It was about  seven degrees when we left. I was bundled up knowing the wheelchair often has to wait.

Well, no waiting on a sleeper. I was onboard and in my room in minutes. The room at first sight looked like a bathroom but I turned around and there was a bedroom and a curtain separating the bed and bath. It is a little more definitive than the transient hotels I used to stay in when busking in Chicago. That was a long time ago. Anyhow, I was glad that I would be the only one using my bathroom. Everything has its cost.

They asked what I would like for dinner. I wasn’t sure if we were having dinner, but I had read the menu with hope. I had butter chicken, salad, brownie, and a mini bottle of bourbon. No ice, just a little sippy bottle. I also had a San Pellegrino. This is luxury compared to coach. I don’t think they even had the café open when I rode this route last.

I turned on a Dead album. Winter Solstice.  A lot of long spacey jams. That’s the stuff I enjoy most. I was trying to read, and I heard the familiar Playing in the Band intro. I paused to listen to the song. The tune was moving along with some good energy. Bobby was in good voice. Then comes a little instrumental section. The band is caught in a groove everyone was playing perfectly together. As the groove continued, the guitar and piano took off in two different directions. The drums began their own little game, chasing each other in circles. The rhythm guitar was like a kid in his own world who just discovered a pack of matches. Some of the chords he played had this sense of you "won’t know until you try."

The bass maintained and held it all together, pushing things along as they needed to be pushed. The guitars, piano, and drums would start debating for direction. Somehow the bass would give them all a solid platform. Ultimately the madness devolved into a few random cymbal hits and a guitar run.

The bass started pushing everything back to where it began. The spell was broken. They all remembered what they had started, and then the familiar tune Playing in the band resumed. As the theme began to build back, a woman’s voice comes out of nowhere, maybe a bit too loud, perhaps overdriving the mic, and a little off key. The song returns, and all is right once again..

Anyhow, this rail line is where I wrote one of my personal favorites, Silhouette in Blue. The song reflects on the cradle of American music that runs from Chicago, through Memphis, Jackson, and arriving in New Orleans The song is a reflection of history. At the end of the first verse, I sing, “She don’t care about Graceland, she is here for Lorraine". A dismissal of popular culture in favor of honoring Dr Martin Luther King Jr and what he died for.

We still have a long way to go, but it is there. He told us he has been to the mountain. That is where I want to go. Get onboard.