Inside MusiCast 'Pick Of The Day': “Train In The Distance", by Paul Simon

Inside MusiCast 'Pick Of The Day': “Train In The Distance”, by Paul Simon. Selected by Rick Such

For this week's picks, I'm going to focus on songs that feature Jeff Porcaro.

In 1983 when Paul Simon released his sixth studio album “Hearts And Bones”, Steve Gadd held down the drumming duties on every track, but two. Steve Ferrone performed on “When Numbers Get Serious”, while Jeff Porcaro was assigned to the track “Train In The Distance”, arguably the most memorable song on the album.

This song will always resonate with me, because when I was a kid I grew-up in a suburb of Indianapolis that was home to one of the largest Amtrak repair facilities in the country. I lived on the other side of this small suburb and I often heard train horns in the distance. A train horn contains a strange cacophony of harmonics. Up close, its sheer volume and major 6th or diminished 7th chords gives off an eerie and somewhat frightening effect. However, I always felt that this same horn blast when heard from a distance translates much differently. The distance softens the horn effect. It echoes and resonates throughout the landscape of the town and results in an ominous feeling that could lend itself to sadness, or perhaps loneliness. It was also a sound that I personally related to my definition of home. I remember going off to college and on a quiet weekend in my dorm room I could hear the train horns sounding throughout campus and it reminded me of home and missing my family and friends there.

This track is also a prime example of Jeff Porcaro’s genius behind the drum kit. It’s exactly why I loved who Jeff Porcaro was as a musician, as there was no ego in the way he played. You know when listening to this track why he was enlisted to lend his talents to it, because of his ability to give the song exactly what it needed from a musical perspective. Jeff could give you so many dimensions behind a drum kit, from his amazing shuffle on Rosanna, to a complex fusion track on a Los Lobotomys track, to a song like “Train In The Distance” where he softly blends his groove so well that his performance almost seems invisible. Jeff simply wanted to be with the music and give it what it deserved. Nothing more and nothing less.

– Rick Such, IMC Co-host