On the 5:15
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On the 5:15 is a song written in 1915 and recorded by Billy Murray, along with the American Quartet, which featured a bass counterpoint to Murray's Irish tenor voice, probably Bill Hooley.
This song is a satire of the commuter train system and the "modern" fast pace of life in the big cities, a situation already well-established by the time of World War I, and of course subject to jokes when things don't go as planned. There is no "chorus" to this song, each stanza is unique. Its five stanzas add up to somewhat of a "shaggy dog story" that tells a tale of a frustrated commuter, one of many (as he soon discovers) who keep missing the 5:15 train to the suburbs, and consequently get in trouble with their wives. Here is the first stanza:
- Talk about your subway, talk about your "L"
- Talk about your streetcar lines as well
- But when you're living out where the fields are green
- You've got to go home on the 5:15
- You leave the office at 5:00
- Stop at the butcher's for a steak or a chop
- Get the evening paper and a magazine
- And you run like the Dickens for the 5:15
- Oh the 5:15 - Hear the whistle blowing!
- Oh the 5:15 - Your "Ingersol" is slow!
- Oh the 5:15 - Down the track she's going,
- BANG! go the gates on the 5:15!
The Ingersol watch was a popular brand at that time.
The unnamed subject of the song is eventually taken to divorce court by his angry wife. He wins his case easily, as he says, because "the jury, the lawyers, the judge supreme / all are commuters on the 5:15."
One oddity about the song is the brief instrumental bar played at both the beginning and the end of the song, namely "Shave and a Haircut", suggesting that that famous little song was already well-known among musicians.
[edit] See also
- "5:15"
