Dave Ratcliffe Piano

F Tonic Freight Train

Here I’m fiddling around with a mostly 24-bar progression. As a child, one of two professions I wanted grow up to be was a train engineer. I loved the deep sound and felt vibration of a locomotive engine as well as it’s incomprehensible power. Duke Ellington’s Happy Go Lucky Local (1946) and Daybreak Express (1933)—magnificently portrayed in D.A. Pennebaker’s homage to Duke (1953)—evoke the ineffable beauty, driving energy, and magic of trains through their essential locomotive “leader” barreling down those railroad tracks.