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The true cost of going to work by train

from Passengers Greatest Hits by Hiawatha Telephone Company

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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    A limited edition printed CD with 12-page 'passengers' photo-lyric booklet in a special hand-numbered envelope-sleeve are still available

    Includes unlimited streaming of Passengers Greatest Hits via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 5 days
    edition of 100  10 remaining
    Purchasable with gift card

      £10 GBP or more 

     

about

(this song is the closest relative to the series of photographs from where the album takes its name)

lyrics

I dreamt I'd be an artist but I ended up a booking clerk
for a funeral parlour in Great Yarmouth
that was selling resting places by the yard

And I didn't ever want to stay there, I knew I wouldn't get that far
I thought I'd make it to the city, I thought I'd play a better part

So I thought that I might be a sailor and sail across the briny sea
Find myself a pretty little mermaid to
come back and live at home with me

But a mermaid wouldn't live a life on dry land
And I knew I couldn't spend my life at sea
So I thought I'd try another kind of life again
I thought I'd try to find a better me

My hands grew hard from working as a farmer
I tried my best to feed the common man
My sweat fell on the soil to feed the flowers
and the rain washed it far into the sand

But the people wouldn't eat the food I grew them
and the birds ate the seeds right off the trees
the rain it fell and washed away the crops I grew
and i knew a farmers life was not for me

So I bought myself a smart dark blue suit
and a shirt from a man in Saville Row
and I found myself a desk in an office
so I could teach myself things I didn't need to know
and I was the boss of a little man
and a taller man was leaning over me
every day I picked my peck of paperclips
and Peter pickled penny thoughts for free

And I stood on the platform at the station
whistling the earworm in my head
asking why I had forgotten why I came here
and the truth I thought I heard she said

that life is not the thing that you would live for
and straight lines are just straight lines until they bend
you can live the life you choose until its over
and the train will always get you in the end

credits

from Passengers Greatest Hits, released April 28, 2014
Jon - guitar, vocals

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about

Hiawatha Telephone Company Brighton, UK

A singer-songwriter sort-of-thing, named after a t-shirt and never intended as a viable commercial proposition HTC was a vehicle for some excellent songs.

2009 album 'Harry Smith was my Father' is described as "immaculate, the acme of intimacy in music" (Common Folk Meadow). A second album 'Passengers Greatest Hits' followed in 2014.

HTC now records and releases music as 'The Family Grave'.
... more

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