Losers and Trump's Locomotive Breath

“In the shuffling madness
Of the locomotive breath,
Runs the all, time loser,
Headlong to his death.”

Jethro Tull

If I had a flute, I would be wailing away on it right now. Ian Anderson style. Blasting it with no regard for how the instrument was intended to be played. I feel like we are all inside that song right now. Locomotive Breath. The song begins with a foreboding piano solo in which the dark ride about to begin could easily be overlooked. The piano piece is pretty and sounds a lot like complacency. It’s not going anywhere, but there are sad undertones in the notes. But then the piano marches into an unmistakable train cadence. The passengers are probably feeling pretty comfortable and confident at this point. Just a normal train ride with a competent Conductor. But then the band kicks in you know that we are on a runaway train. You can feel it in the guitar and the rhythm. Ian Anderson uses his flute to scream out a warning. The flute pleads for us to notice that the train is headed for catastrophe.

There have been hundreds of songs written about trains. Trains were born to be metaphors. Every word associated with trains seems like the engineers who designed them were thinking about creating poetic devices as much as they were about designing a mode of transit. Think about the words we use when we talk about trains. Locomotive, junctions, cross-ties, tracks, switchman, signals, and crossings. Whistles and bells. Runaway. All of us have been told the story of the little train that could. It had to use all its might to push the big train up the steepest grade. And we hear songs about trains that make it to the downward side of those steep grades and the momentum builds and becomes an unstoppable disaster.

But the runaway train in Locomotive Breath is not out of control because of a steep grade. The conductor has not lost control. This is not a song about a tragic train accident. There is something sinister and secretive going on. A deliberate act has been committed with the intent of setting the train un an unstoppable crash course. “Charlie stole the handle and the train it won’t stop going. No way to slow down.”

I want to sound out the warning with the ferocious style of Ian Anderson blowing across the flute’s mouthpiece. Some of us heard the piano at the beginning and only heard the pretty notes. We closed our ears to the dark notes of complacency. Some of us hear the piano rhythm plinking out the normal steadiness expected on an ordinary train ride. We imagine that is all this is. Just a normal ride along a new track that the switchman has put us on. Some of us hear the intensity pick up as the guitar, bass, and drums start churning in a way that sounds like mob mentality. The band begins churning up the dirt and soot from the underbelly. It reminds us of the darkness that always resides just beneath the surface waiting for some sinister character to dredge it up.

We are in that part of the song right now.  The flute has started screeching out its warning but only some of us can hear it that way. Some hear it as a call to party, a time to embrace the darkness, a time to forget all that we know is right and give in to greed and the lust for power. Who cares if the children have to jump off a train that won’t slow down.

I want that flute. I want the largest amplifiers I can find. I want to warn that Charlie has stolen the handle and this train is going, it has no way to slow down. But too many passengers are unaware of the fact that the train has been compromised. They are oblivious to the screaming flutes of protests, and news reporters, and the endless tweets from Charlie himself saying, “Yes, I stole the handle, the train is going, and it cannot slow down.” Charlie is a loser. Charlie is jealous. Charlie wants to hold all the power. Charlie is setting us on the ultimate crash course. Pick up a flute and sound out a warning. It’s going to take us all to stop the locomotive breath. He hears “the silence howling.”  We cannot be silent.