Monday, March 21, 2011

People Get Ready, The Train is Coming

The train metaphor is somehow inspiring to modern songwriters in devotional music, even western devotional. Listening to Rod Stewart, of all people, sing "People Get Ready, The Train is Coming" gave chills and a great enjoyment of the train metaphor. In the eastern spiritual tradition of sahaja yoga, Kishore Chaturvedi introduced a piece of modern folk music, that also rides the train metaphor.

The lyrics are simple, yet deep. For instance, in one stanza, allusions are made to checked baggage, which is out of site for the passenger of life, but should not be forgetten to be pick it up at baggage claim at the end of the journey. Similarly, those who resort to guilt, rather than self correction, store their bad karma baggage by checking it out of sight in the left part of the vishuddhi chakra (left shoulder/throat junction). But guilt will come back and bite the spiritual seeker, unless it is faced and gotten rid of, along your journey by self-correction.

Here is a snippet of this delightful song, we got singing at a meditaiton gathering in Pittsburgh. Excuse the missed notes and beats... this spontaneous rendering, with interludes from memory are not studio quality, but heartwarming.

Listen Online  (Rec 3/20/2011)



OR Download Here


Further Listening: 

Watch Kishore Chaturvedi, the artiste himself, playing the melody on a real flute, and singing a stanza at the end:



But this is not the first time we are recording something and putting it up. Here is the crowd favorite "Your Sound Around Me" camp version from Christmas 2009 from Steel City again:



1 comment:

Cristina said...

Could you post the lyrics please?