A few years ago I asked Malvina Reynolds' daughter, the gifted songwriter Nancy Schimmel, about the origins of her mother's song, "Morningtown Ride". Nancy said that Malvina was thinking about how children have to go off to bed earlier than adults, and in doing so, feel that they are missing out on the evening's activities. Malvina wanted to write a song that gave children something to look forward to as they prepared for bed: an understanding of the journey we take when we go to sleep, a journey that brings us to our destination, Morningtown. I like to include this song in programs of railroad songs to illustrate the frequent use of the locomotive as a metaphor on folksongs. In my experience, pre-schoolers really love this song, especially the alliterative line about "... Rockin', rollin' riding ...

-Adam Miller
autoharper@earthlink.net
folksinging.org