The Voice – "Train to Disaster" (1965)

The world is on its way

Every passenger will pay

If he stays on the train to disaster

On May 1, Marc Elrich – the County Executive of Montgomery County, Maryland (where I’ve lived for many years) – issued the following statement about a demonstration by students at a local high school:

Today is International Labor Day – a day celebrated around the world to honor workers and their struggles.  

Here in the U.S., it’s generally not recognized because past leaders worried it would connect American workers to radicals and the international workers’ movement.  That history matters, and it’s all the more reason to remember and uplift this day.

This year, Americans are using May Day to call out the damage being done to workers under the Trump administration – from federal workers to farmworkers and beyond.

I was thrilled to talk to a group of Richard Montgomery High School students who walked out this morning to declare that they will not accept the destructive policies of this administration.  Their energy and resolve are a powerful reminder that the fight for workers’ rights is still very much alive.

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A statement issued by the students said that they walked out of school to defend democracy and protest the rising threat of fascism and “broligarchy” (whatever that is) in the United States.

“Our freedom doesn’t come for free – every couple of generations has to fight for democracy and civil rights, and now it’s our turn,” said the organizer of the protest.  “Students have always punched above our weight in history – and we are just getting started.  Fascism grows when people are silent.  It’s up to us to be as loud as possible.” 

Not to be a nitpicker, but I don’t see anything in the students’ statement about workers’ rights.  It looks to me like County Executive Elrich badly wanted to make a statement about that issue, and didn’t let the fact that the student protest was actually about something else entirely get in the way.

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I doubt that any of the students will complain about the county executive hijacking their protest.  After all, they not only got away with skipping school – they won praise from Elrich for doing so.

I would have issued a somewhat different statement if I had been in the county executive’s shoes – i.e., “ALL YOU PROTESTERS BETTER GET YOUR ASSES BACK IN CLASS TOOT SWEET!”

Here’s another thing.  Those students could have scheduled their protest for a Saturday instead of missing class – right?  

Before County Executive Elrich got into politics, he was a teacher, so you’d think he would be wise to student tricks.  But he taught 5th grade, and 5th graders aren’t as clever as high schoolers.  (Based on the Elrich statement quoted above, being a 5th-grade teacher doesn’t require you to know much about American history.)

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I’m not sure that the title of today’s featured record – “Train to Disaster” – is a fair description of Marc Elrich’s reign as Montgomery County Executive.

But I’m not sure that it isn’t.

I featured “Train to Disaster” – a very obscure single by a very obscure band – about six weeks ago.

When 2 or 3 lines features a record for a second time, it’s usually because 2 or 3 lines doesn’t remember featuring it the first time.  

I don’t think I’ve ever forgotten featuring a record quite so quickly – six weeks isn’t a very long time.  But this might be a sign of things to come, so don’t be surprised if you see another 2 or 3 lines post featuring “Train to Disaster” sometime soon.

Having said that, I will say that “Train to Disaster” is a stick of dynamite.  Those of you who missed the first “Train to Disaster” post should consider yourselves fortunate that you’re getting a second bite at the apple.

Click here to listen to “Train to Disaster.”

Click here to buy the recording from Amazon. 

The Voice – "Train to Disaster" (1965)

You know the end is near

And you’re laughing out of fear

Here’s a quote you might have read recently:

You know, I do the weave.  You know what the weave is?  I’ll talk about like nine different things, and they all come back brilliantly together and it’s like, and friends of mine that are, like, English professors, they say, ‘It’s the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen.’  But the fake news, you know what they say?  ‘He rambled.’

The person who said those words?  None other than our 47th President, Donald John Trump.

What I found most interesting about that quote is that it applies one hundred percent – maybe even one hundred and ten percent – to 2 or 3 lines.

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I gave birth to 2 or 3 lines on November 1, 2009  – long before Donald Trump declared his candidacy for the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination.  (I’m sure you remember how that campaign turned out.)

The weave is real!

I’m not saying that President Trump stole “ the weave” from me.  Maybe it’s just a coincidence that “the weave” so closely resembles my rhetorical style.  

Do you believe in coincidences?  Albert Einstein didn’t.  “Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous,” he once said.

If you don’t believe Einstein – who was about a thousand times smarter than you are – maybe you’ll be persuaded by something that best-selling author Jim Butcher wrote:

Last year in the U.S. alone more than nine hundred thousand people were reported missing and not found.

That's out of three hundred million, total population. That breaks down to about one person in 325 vanishing every year.

Maybe it’s a coincidence, but its almost the same loss ratio experienced by herd animals on the African savannah to large predators.

(Case closed.)

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“Train to Disaster” was the only single The Voice ever released.  Most of the group’s members were also members of an odd religious cult called The Process, who worshipped both Christ and Satan.  When they upped and moved to the Bahamas with the rest of the cult’s members in 1966, that was the end of The Voice.

Fun fact: The Voice once called themselves Karl Stuart and the Profile – even though there was no one named Karl Stuart in the band.

Click here to listen to “Train to Disaster.”

Click here to buy the recording from Amazon.