Barrier – "Dawn Breaks Through" (1968)

Rough waves beating

Fish jump the air

Clouds are crawling

I . . . I don’t care

The New York City subway – which opened for business in 1904 – isn’t the world’s oldest.  (That honor goes to the London Underground, which started moving passengers in 1890.)  

And it isn’t the world’s longest – not by a long shot.  (London, Moscow, and no fewer than eleven Chinese metropolises have systems that exceed New York City’s 248 miles in length.) 

While the New York City subway transports more people than any other subway system in the Western Hemisphere, the subways in Seoul, Tokyo, Delhi, Moscow, and five Chinese cities carry even more passengers. 

The New York City system does take home the “Most Stations” prize with 424.  (Second-place Beijing’s system has 20 fewer stations despite being over twice as long as New York City’s.)

More importantly, the New York City subway gave the world subway tiles.  The bathroom showers and kitchen backsplashes of America wouldn’t be the same without the ubiquitous 3-inch by 6-inch tiles placed in a “half offset” pattern).

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The white subway tiles used in the New York City subway system were the brainchild of architects George C. Heins and Christopher Grant LaFarge, who were also responsible for designing the colorful ceramic plaques and tile mosaics that decorate many of the stations.

2 or 3 lines took a half-dozen or so subway rides on my recent New York City trip.  Most of the stations I visited were dimly lit, poorly ventilated, and grimy – but the adornments created by Heins and LaFarge are often striking and beautiful.

The original mosaics are primarily functional – for example, they simply identify station names:

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In addition to the mosaics, some of the stations feature ceramic bas-reliefs somewhat reminiscent of the works of Renaissance artist Andrea della Robbia:

That ceramic beaver plaque is one of several that decorates the Astor Place subway station honors John Jacob Astor, the first American multi-millionaire, who made his initial fortune importing beaver pelts from Canada and exporting them to Europe.

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I first heard The Last’s “She Don’t Know Why I’m Here” in 1980, but I wasn’t able to identify it until many years later.  (If you’ve never heard it, click here right now!)

“She Don’t Know Why I’m Here” was the reason I started writing 2 or 3 lines in 2009 – it was the very first record ever featured on my wildly successful little blog.  I assumed that even if I lived to be as old as Methuselah, I would never hear a record that had as singular an effect on me.

That assumption held true until last Saturday morning, when I just happened to be listening to the Sirius/XM “Underground Garage” channel when DJ Palmyra Delran played today’s featured song.  (Coincidence?  I think not.  Some things are just too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence.)

The Barrier’s “Dawn Breaks Through” is an obscure 1968 B-side by an obscure British psychedelic group that was released on an obscure record label. It’s also the only record I’ve ever heard that compares to “She Don’t Know Why I’m Here.”

Thank God I didn’t die before I stumbled across “Dawn Breaks Through.”  Now that I’ve heard it, I’m ready to meet my maker.  (If I should die before I wake in the morning, I . . . I don’t care!)

Click here to listen to “Dawn Breaks Through” by the Barrier (who originally called themselves the Purple Barrier).

Click here to buy “Dawn Breaks Through” from Amazon.