The Old Railway Track, by Sunshine Playroom

The Old Railway Track

by Sunshine Playroom

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Laurence Folkesmeister Gorgeous, detailed and ethereal. Creates nostalgia in a way only Boards of Canada used to do for me. Favorite track: Pause for a Comma.

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1.	Programmes for Schools introlude 01:10	info
2.	Halcyon Daze 02:09	info	buy track
3.	A Trip Down Grafton Lane 03:51	lyrics	buy track
"Never mind. I'll go and take a walk. See you, then. Oh - er, and I'll bring a story to tell you too..."
4.	A Summer Forecast 02:25	info	buy track
5.	Theme from Harry's Farm 03:03		buy track
6.	Pause for a Comma 03:10		buy track
7.	Stopping, Looking and Listening 02:49	info	buy track
8.	The Ghosts of Trains Passed 03:55		buy track
9.	Sun Basking 02:20	lyrics	buy track
The sun is here, it's summertime... Bask in the warm sunshine
10.	A Way of Making the World Smaller 03:09	info	buy track
11.	The Gatekeeper 02:33		buy track
12.	Small Copper (Steam Daydream) 02:28		buy track
13.	The Beekeeper 02:11		buy track
14.	Nettles, Thistles and Old Man's Beard 03:03		buy track
15.	The Old Railway Track (theme) 02:24		buy track
16.	Nymphalidae 03:42		buy track

about

"The Old Railway Track"
A hazy, psychedelic dream journey through childhood memories, of a specific time and place. Sunny and bright but tinged with feelings of melancholy and loss, on a number of levels.

Firstly, it is the longing for the mythical warmth of childhood summers in the late 70s/early 80s, which are only able to be relived through imperfect memory. Of walking along Grafton Lane, past the chickens in the field opposite Harry's Farm, onto the railway bridge, then sliding down through a gap in the hedge to the magical world of The Old Railway Track:

A disused railway track from the former Bidford-on-Avon station, which had been closed in 1949 and pulled up even before Dr Beeching's infamous report in 1963. Nature had reclaimed it and it was now a haven for butterflies, bees and other wildlife. It was exciting but hard to fathom that real trains has once passed along there, and thrilling to imagine their ghosts passing by through the bracken.

Many afternoon adventures were spent walking along the track path with brambles, bushes and wildflowers cascading down. Suddenly stopping and freezing to glimpse the some of the many different butterflies skipping and flitting around: Commas, Peacocks, Painted Ladies, Gatekeepers, Small Coppers, Meadow Browns, Common Blues and Speckled Woods (and all the rest).

Walking to the far end of the track before it meets the main road, we often saw a beekeeper attending a few hives. On one occasion I marvelled as he pulled a fresh stinger out of the skin on his wrist and held it so we could see...

On revisiting the old railway track around forty years later on a warm, sunny morning, the place is still there: the same and yet so different.

The farm is still in operation, but chickens are no longer in the field. There is no clear gap in the hedge to slide down to adventure, so a longer walk around the back field is required to gain access to the former track. Time has inevitably meant that it is more overgrown than it was in childhood, denser vegetation - impassable in one direction – yet somehow less lush.

Maybe it is the time of day, but it feels like it's not as full of life as it once was. Is this partly because of the staggering decline in numbers of butterflies compared to 40 years ago, a symptom of the ecological emergency we face? It's another, sad, sobering layer of loss - the huge decline in species, which feels very tangible when contrasted with vivid memories of abundance...

credits

released September 22, 2023

Written, recorded and produced by Greg Wye.
Mastered at Persephonic Audio

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Sunshine Playroom / Proserpine Leeds, UK

Sunshine Playroom (light and fluffy melodic psychedelia), Proserpine (layered guitar-scapes), and Persephonic Sprawl (ambient, drone and experimental).

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