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  1. Train Surfer
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Train Surfer

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Copyright Joanne Cooper, Peter Geach and Alyn James

This is a fun song about the bizarre practice of Train Surfing. It is written by my good friends Peter Geach, Alyn James and me.

We were having a lovely spring break in Groot Mario in August and I was strumming away on my guitar (as usual). Pete was inspired by my recent collaboration with John C Gull on "Cecil the Beautiful".https://youtu.be/1PFTN68Sp5I. Pretty soon after the weekend, Pete drove over to my house and presented me with two hand written poems scratched out in long hand on plain A4 paper. One was titled "Train Surfer" and the other was titled "Toxic Surfer".

I took "Train Surfer", put a blues progression to it, modified a few lines, molded a chorus and then did a very rough recording. I also did some investigation to see if I could secure some train surfing footage. I was depressed to learn that it would cost a gazillion dollars per second to use bona fide train surfing footage and obtaining the footage myself was near impossible. I filed the song away for another day.

Then Alyn posted a song called "Old man rapper" on the PG music website, https://soundcloud.com/alyn-james/old-man-rapper which I absolutely loved and had the idea to ask Alyn if he would like to collaborate on Train Surfer. Alyn, in true spirit, jumped right in hands and feet. Some mp3's and wav files flew back and forth between Wales and South Africa and after some very hard work from Alyn, this song was produced.

Thank you Alyn and Peter. What a wonderful rendition!

Lyrics

Train surfer up on high
Why’d you playing with that fire
You must have been high on the wire
You know you’ll land up in your funeral pyre

I seen you up on that roof and your body begins to morph
Riding that rickety snake as it rattles towards the big smoke
Street teen I see you lying back on your hips
And watching that coil of blue flash by
Always daring, never expecting that a change of tempo
Will ruin your death defying dance

Train surfer up on high
Why’d you playing with that fire
You must have been high on the wire
You know you’ll land up in your pyre

And now the platform approaches and your fun and games are over
Others have been watching and they’ll be hoping to cuff you down
Your dismount happens to be the most dangerous part of your act
Your heart is pumping and your head is still dizzy
As you struggle to find a foot hold
As you climb down through the window
And there’s a jolt and a change of pace
You’ve run your race for too long now
The wheels of steel are waiting
As the train surfs in
Surfing in without its rider

Train surfer up on high
Why’d you playing with that fire
You must have been high on the wire
You know you’ll land up in your pyre