A whole carload of songs have been written about New York City’s subway system since folks first started riding around “in a hole in the ground,” in 1904.
Maybe you’ve never tapped your toes to The Subway Glide whose 78 rpm record was the first to get subway songs rolling in 1912, or 1922’s Bronx Express from the hit show of the same name.
But we’re willing to bet a MetroCard that you’ve grooved to soulful Joe Bataan’s Subway Joe (1965), or stomped and swirled to the disco-licious Last Train to Coney Island by Bronx Express Orchestra (1977), spaced-out (’til the scream) to The Cure’s Subway Song (1979), or Tom “reality is for people who can’t face drugs” Waits’ Downtown Train (1985), or jumped around double-time to Giant Iron Snake, by nerdcore king Schaffer the Darklord (2013).
There are so many NYC subway inspired tunes, in fact, that the city’s Metro Transit Authority created a Subway Songs playlist on Spotify.
Take the "A" Train
The most enduring of them all, however, has got to be Take the “A” Train, the swingy 1939 jazz standard composed by Billy Strayhorn, with lyrics by Lee Gaines and Joya Sherrill, for Duke Ellington’s orchestra. It soon became the orchestra’s signature song and was performed by Ellington and the band in 1943 on a movie studio set for the film Reveille with Beverly with vocalist extraordinaire Betty Roché.
Watch the movie clip here (masterfully audio-enhanced and colorized by @ebjazz93):
Take the “A” Train has been covered by many artists including Ella Fitzgerald (who recorded many versions), Cab Calloway, Lawrence Welk, Henry Mancini, Sun Ra, and Bobby McFerrin, to name just a few.
Behind the Scenes
The song’s name comes from a note Ellington sent to Strayhorn earlier in 1939, giving him directions to take the A Train/8th Avenue Express subway line to the bandleader’s home in the Sugar Hill neighborhood of Harlem.
But note that in the Hollywood movie clip above, the exterior establishing shot is footage of a Union Pacific City of Los Angeles passenger train in California, not a New York subway train. Likewise, the band is depicted performing in a railroad passenger club car, not a subway.
The interior also shows a rolling outdoor landscape through the windows of the fabricated set. The actual A Train, however, runs entirely undergound.
The Delta Rhythm Boys Version
The Delta Rhythm Boys, the incomparable jazz vocal quartet of the time, constructed a slightly different set of lyrics for Take the “A” Train to fit both the muted and open trumpet solos by Ray Nance. They made this studio recording of it in 1941:
The Longest Line
Opened in 1932, the A train route is 31-miles long -- the longest subway line in the city. It stretches all the way from Inwood in northern Manhattan to the Rockaways and Richmond Hill in southeastern Queens. The Manhattan portion of the A train is also known as the 8th Avenue Express because it runs express between 207th Street and Chambers Street.
Photos (from top): Duke Ellington and his Orchestra performing Take the “A” Train on set in the movie Reveille with Beverly (1939); Photo ©Bettmann via vocalgroupharmony.com. Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, Frank Driggs Collection/National Museum of American History Archives Center. The 8th Avenue Subway carriage, 1930s; photographer unknown; Album/Heritage Images/Historica Graphica Collection. An A Train car at 207th Street Station, July 2023; Wikipedia.
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