Pachelbel's Train

December 5, 2019 5:28 AM

Pachelbel's Canon, on train horns. (SLYT)
posted by EvaDestruction (41 comments total)

I really needed that this morning. Thanks.
posted by Ickster at 5:33 AM on December 5, 2019 [4 favorites]

I've never really thought about Pachelbel's Canon having a drop before, but there it is.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 5:34 AM on December 5, 2019 [2 favorites]

Don't blink or you'll miss Thomas the Tank Engine.
posted by Peach at 5:42 AM on December 5, 2019 [11 favorites]

Fantastic!
posted by jquinby at 5:48 AM on December 5, 2019

This just keeps on getting better and better.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 5:50 AM on December 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

Between this and the rubber chickens, I don't think I can ever take Pachebel's Canon seriously again.

(In another video, the TwoSetViolin dudes explain that they have developed a special loathing for this piece because it's so overplayed.)
posted by confluency at 5:52 AM on December 5, 2019 [9 favorites]

Now I want a train horn Mambo #5.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 5:53 AM on December 5, 2019

Of all the novelty renditions of this song, this is the one I'd choo-choo-choose.
posted by exogenous at 6:04 AM on December 5, 2019 [12 favorites]

I find this weird mashup of two different types of human achievement oddly moving, like I'm transported to another place.
posted by mcdoublewide at 6:09 AM on December 5, 2019 [8 favorites]

I spent the first 18 seconds thinking, that's not a train horn, this is bullshit, but man, I'm not one to bandy the word genius around, but this is fucking genius.
posted by jontyjago at 6:09 AM on December 5, 2019 [8 favorites]

This is good. Thank you!
posted by MonkeyToes at 6:10 AM on December 5, 2019

Has anyone tried this with...canons?
posted by hwestiii at 6:15 AM on December 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

Hahaha! Genius, indeed. I want to get remarried to my wife to this.
posted by soundofsuburbia at 6:16 AM on December 5, 2019 [2 favorites]

Thanks a lot confluency! Now I'm going to spend the rest of the day watching TwoSetViolin play the hell out of a rubber chicken.
posted by rickw at 6:25 AM on December 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

I was going to say that Pachelbel's Canon was the Danny Boy of baroque music, and then I saw that James Galway did a recording of it, and now I'm totally convinced that it's the Danny Boy of baroque music. And like Danny Boy, I kind of secretly love it, even though I realize that it is hokey and desperately overplayed. Also, its history is kind of fascinating. Apparently, although it was written in the late 17th century, it wasn't published until the 1910s, and it didn't become widely known until 1968. It's probably the best-known piece of classical music that isn't Ode to Joy or Pomp and Circumstance, and almost nobody had heard it 60 years ago.

I want to get remarried to my wife to this.

I feel like this is the perfect musical accompaniment for a wedding on a train.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:28 AM on December 5, 2019 [4 favorites]

This is immensely rude and I love it.
posted by eponym at 7:19 AM on December 5, 2019

(In another video, the TwoSetViolin dudes explain that they have developed a special loathing for this piece because it's so overplayed.)

My partner is a cellist. If you think violin players hate the piece....
posted by solotoro at 7:39 AM on December 5, 2019 [4 favorites]

I mean, it is the melody from Pachbel's Canon, but it isn't the actual canon because a canon requires the melody to overlap itself, which this version does not do, and the way the melody sits on top of itself so well is what makes the tune what it is. The chicken version does it right.

This is, however, hilarious.

Playthrough w/ sheet music for those interested.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:42 AM on December 5, 2019 [6 favorites]

My partner is a cellist. If you think violin players hate the piece....

I take it that they agree with Pachebel's Rant?
posted by NoxAeternum at 7:53 AM on December 5, 2019 [2 favorites]

Considering this piece was largely forgotten until the the 1970s having a train version seems about right. Although I guess something even more of the time, like phone ringtones, could be more on the nose. But this is Great!

(And yes, the cello part is long booooooring base notes for most of the piece).
posted by ldthomps at 8:14 AM on December 5, 2019

Pachebel's Rant

Relevant link.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:27 AM on December 5, 2019 [4 favorites]

All those train horns and not A Cruel Angel's Thesis?

People are weird.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 8:36 AM on December 5, 2019 [2 favorites]

In the youtube comments, ACETrainsUK asks for a link back to their channel because most of the footage was taken from their channel. So here's ACETrainsUK's original compilation.

Thanks for the post! I had to turn my volume down, but this has brightened my morning.
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 8:46 AM on December 5, 2019 [2 favorites]

I sympathize with the complaint that it's overused, but I think it's wrapped around for me now and, contra the pachelbel rant, I delight in encountering it once again in a new form. It's an old friend.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 8:58 AM on December 5, 2019

Absolutely cackling listening to this. Thank you for posting it.

In the youtube comments, ACETrainsUK asks for a link back to their channel because most of the footage was taken from their channel. So here's ACETrainsUK's original compilation.

I'm enjoying listening to this, too! I'm surprised by all the two-tone "HEY there" sounds since that's not something I've encountered from trains in the US (where usually it's just long steady monotone or harmony tones blast). Much more conversational and goofy feeling, like droids having a chat.

Really this one sounds like experimental jazz. Put a drummer and a bassist behind it and we've got something.
posted by cortex at 9:16 AM on December 5, 2019 [5 favorites]

I like trains and their horns, and the resurrection of dead horse repertoire*, so: yes to this!

My former-life ensemble performed the entire piece (which is longer than this, btw.) in September '99 during a Greenland tour on Baroque Instruments. Of course, there was no single harpsichord to be found on the entire island, so I was forced to use a Roland keyboard with a harpsichord stop. I think for that specific context, a dog-bark synth might have been more appropriate, with the alto part in crow croaks and dog howls.


*The problem with a piece like this: playing it through twice makes it "overused" already. It's a, um, downhill battle that way.
posted by Namlit at 9:17 AM on December 5, 2019

Horrendous. 9.5/10
posted by fleacircus at 9:35 AM on December 5, 2019 [2 favorites]

→ trains in the US (where usually it's just long steady monotone or harmony tones blast).

Get some fast trains in your country and you'll see the need for two-tone horns. It's a reflex from my youthful minor delinquency days to expect a "MEEP-MAWP" and have to leap for my life anywhere near rails. It would have been a embarrassing way to end my young days, splushed across the front of a grumbly old Class 101 on the East Kilbride line.
posted by scruss at 9:43 AM on December 5, 2019

Agree that the rubber chicken version is still champ, but this is hilarious in its own way, with definite bonus points for the Thomas cameo. The video chips in the fast section were too distracting, should have gone with a grid being filled or something.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 9:55 AM on December 5, 2019

Awesome, thank you for posting. Have shared with train-loving coworkers.
posted by agatha_magatha at 11:43 AM on December 5, 2019 [2 favorites]

ACETrainsUK asks for a link back to their channel because most of the footage was taken from their channel.

Ok, that explains why in at least one shot (seen several times, first at 0:34) there is a round white sign with a W on it, known as a whistle board, used in the UK. It tells the engineer to blow the whistle for a grade crossing or station ahead. In the Czech republic, the W is not used — they have red and white striped poles, instead.
posted by beagle at 12:20 PM on December 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

Found industrial classical music, filed under awesome. Thank you!
posted by riverlife at 1:09 PM on December 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

As the second side of his album Discreet Music, I first heard Brian Eno's Three Variations on the Canon in D Major by Johann Pachelbel in 1975.
I doubt I will ever get tired of it.
posted by y2karl at 2:03 PM on December 5, 2019 [3 favorites]

I first heard the Canon at a photographer's exhibit booth at a county fair in 1978 or '79. I don't listen to it as much anymore, but I love the thing. And this was just...amazing. Laugh-out-loud amazing.
posted by lhauser at 7:37 PM on December 5, 2019

When did the train whistle become the train horn?

All those train horns and not A Cruel Angel's Thesis?

Can there actually be train horn versions of the Neon Genesis music? Good grief.
posted by Rash at 7:47 PM on December 5, 2019

The train horn version is fun, but thank you so much grumpybear69 for the sheet music video! It's like watching wheels within wheels, and I think I've fallen in love with this piece all over again.
posted by bryon at 9:34 PM on December 5, 2019

When did the train whistle become the train horn?

Whistles were powered by the pressure relief on a stream engine. I guess that the diesels and electrics don't have a big pressure vessel to vent and use electric horns instead.

I got a belly laugh out of the trains, but the Eno version is making my day.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 9:53 PM on December 5, 2019

Can there actually be train horn versions of the Neon Genesis music? Good grief.


oh. my. god.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 1:55 AM on December 6, 2019 [1 favorite]

Rob Paravonian tunefully explains how he will See You in Hell, Pachelbel (previously)
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 3:25 AM on December 6, 2019 [1 favorite]

OK, new rule, Pachelbel's Canon is now allowed to be a Christmas song but only if it's this version. Happy holidays MetaFilter!
posted by capricorn at 4:53 AM on December 6, 2019 [1 favorite]

This made both my and my mom's morning, yesterday.
I couldn't stop laughing.
posted by rp at 7:05 AM on December 6, 2019 [1 favorite]