"Waiting at the station with a workday wind a-blowing." -- Carole King

Commuter Life As my train trundled home this evening I listened to Carole King's Tapestry. It's one of my favourite records, the album I'd want to lend to anyone who wants to know were the current crop of female singer-sometimes-songwriters found their influence. As the blackness outside the window was broken now and then by a distant street light, I realised that some of the lyrics were really resonating with me in a way which hadn't occured before. It suddenly feels like the perfect commuter wind down album. There are two particular sections and both encapsulate all of the things I've been wanting to write recently about travelling again. Fans might be right ahead of me, but really, Beautiful:

"Waiting at the station with a workday wind a-blowing
I've got nothing to do but watch the passers-by
Mirrored in their faces I see frustration growing
And they don't see it showing, why do I?"

Very true. Every night I stand at Oxford Road station sharing glances with people waiting for the train and we all seem to have that look of wanting to have that forward motion, to get to the destination. That frustration is almost dealt with in an earlier song on the album, Home Again:

"Sometimes I wonder if I'm ever gonna make it home again
It's so far and and out of sight
I really need someone to talk to, and nobody else
Knows how to comfort me tonight
Snow is cold, rain is wet
Chills my soul right to the marrow
I won't be happy till I see you alone
Till I'm home again and feeling right."

Although King's obviously talking about a person, in the absense of someone, I'm happy to substitute that as a return to home, metaphorically and lyrically. I was telling someone tonight that I sometimes find it really difficult to leave Manchester at night simply because I'm there and I want to make to most of it. I have a sort of double life. But the minute I step onto the platform at Lime Street I still have a sense of relief, relaxing. Of being home again.