We were at a party/session over the weekend which evolved/deteriorated into an early morning songswap. Three of us made it until 4:00 AM, during which time we sang 20 or so songs in a row about trains. After burning trains out, we moved on to other modes of transportation - ships for 5 or 6 more, then planes for 3 or 4, and ,finally, a couple of car songs.

At any rate, I got curious as to why we popped out so many train songs versus the other forms of transportation. Surely, I thought, there aren't that many more songs about trains.

So, I just did a Digitrad search and came up with the following interesting results:

Searches for "Plane" and "Airplane" yielded 90 hits. Searches for "Car" and "Automobile" yielded 170 hits (Many of which used "Car" in the sense of "Train Car") Searches for "Train" and "Locomotive" yielded 285 hits. Searches for "Ship" and "Boat" yielded 700 hits.

Does all this mean anything? Why do I know so many train songs and so few ship songs? Why do I spend two hours a day in a car and the only car song I know is John Prine's "The Accident"? Or is it just another one of those things to make you go, "Hmmmm"?

Cheers

bwl