Icebeing takes the Long Train (and finds The Very Questions along the way)
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He couldn’t believe his luck. After the busted alarm clock scuppered the beginning, the traffic snarl scuppered the middle, and the inept ticket office did its very best to scupper the penultimate, Icebeing had made the 10:14 by the skin of his teeth. The morning had truly turned around.
Or had it? The voice on the train speakers declared: “Due to an unforeseen moment in time which has caused this, we are forced to announce that all the stops on this train are now changing and we’re going somewhere completely different to what we were for every stop.” Right. He couldn’t believe his luck again.
Carriage A all full. All seats taken, and some seats with people sitting on laps it was that bad. Carriage B had one solitary seat, next to a fellow who looked, no kidding, like John Lennon. Similar glasses and long hair.
“Hello mate, alright if I sit here? There’s nowhere else for me in carriage A or B,” said Icebeing.
“Yeah that’s fine mate,” said the man.
“Mad about the stops changing isn’t it, how can they do that?” posited Icebeing. “What was your stop?”
“Mine’s Pinkworth.”
That did raise a question. Icebeing had never heard of Pinkworth, but thought it sounded high end. “You look like John Lennon.”
The man sighed, exhausted with it. “Yesss.”
“Do you vibe with music at all as well?”
The man smiled. “Actually do.”
Icebeing reciprocated. “Do you play?”
“My name’s Harry. I play the piano and specialise in chords etc. But what I really want to do is play bass guitar in a band.”
Brilliant, thought Icebeing. If the train's gonna be weird and different with the stops, he can at least try and make strides in getting a proper band together while he’s onboard.
“That’s great Harry, do you want to join a band and play bass on some songs I’ve written?” Icebeing put forward.
“Well if we ain’t going Pinkworth anymore then may as well.”
Brilliant, thought Icebeing again.
Some bloke in train uniform came up to the pair of them. “Excuse me but some of the seats are changing on this carriage, they’re not what they once were. You’re gonna have to move - there’s space in carriage D I’m told.” They couldn’t believe their luck.
There were two seats next to a long man with stretched hair in carriage D. He had headphones on so Icebeing put two & two together and assumed he vibed with music too. He took one headphone off to speak to the pair.
“Hello gents, I’m Iwan with an I.”
“Hi, I’m Icebeing with an I. This is H for Harry.”
“Hello I,” said Harry.
“I can’t believe what’s happening with the stops all changing. Doesn’t look like I’ll be getting home to Honpaggis anytime before soon.”
This raised another question with Icebeing. What the fuck is Honpaggis, he thought. Overcoming this, he said “do you want to join our band we just started on the train, if you play an instrument at all?”
“Yes I want to play drums in the band, even though I regularly injure my toes and feet,” said Iwan.
It was a deal, brilliant.
“Guys you all have to move to carriage G please.” That bloke in train uniform had come back like bad smells. You couldn’t make it up, thought Icebeing.
A man in carriage G had three spare seats next to him as luck would have it. On his T-shirt there was a box drawn on it and inside the box was the word ‘Drew’.
“Hi are you Drew?”
“Yep.”
“Can we sit here with you? We’ve been moved from carriage B and then again from carriage D.”
“Yep, sit here,” said Drew. “I was trying to get back to Yonville but they’ve changed the stops haven’t they.”
Yonville was new to Icebeing. This really did raise a question.
“It’d be weird if he played an instrument too,” said Iwan quietly to Icebeing and Harry.
“I do play an instrument, if that’s what you’re thinking,” said Drew.
“I hope it’s not one we've allocated already,” said Harry.
“I play guitar,” Drew returned. “You know any bands I can join by the way?”
“What about ours? Joining our band?” smiled Icebeing.
Drew said “yeah alright”.
The bloke in train uniform reared his head yet again. “I couldn't help but overhear you guys when I came over to turf you out your seats. Apologies if I’m speaking out of turn here, but there’s a Miss who’s got the whole damn end carriage to herself because she won’t stop playing saxophone and flute and percussion. You should check it.”
Wow, thought Icebeing. Maybe this guy ain’t the villain we thought he was after all. A band with five members sounds cool, and saxophone and flute and percussion sounds like it'd be really good. The four of them made their way to the damn end carriage.
“Hi I’m called Eve,” she said, before tooting the saxophone and flute and playing percussion for a bit. “So, what d’you reckon?”
“Do you play in a band?” they said collectively.
“There aren’t any where I’m from really,” said Eve.
“Where are you from?”
“Millfort Babbidge.”
What the fuck.
“We made a band on the train,” said Drew, “you could join it, if you want.”
They did a quick tune all together on the end carriage as a test. This is brilliant, they thought. They’d heard of bands who’d gone off the rails, but never a band who’d formed on them.
The bloke in train uniform appeared at the carriage door, doffed his cap and clapped the new band. “Splendid. And to think I had a hand in it.”
“You know what, we couldn’t have quite done it without you to be fair,” admitted Icebeing reluctantly.
“What's your band called?”
This did raise yet another question. The biggest very question yet.
“Well, figure it out,” the train bloke said. “We’re coming to our final destination… Wembley Arena Station.”
They couldn’t believe their luck. “We’d better get practising,” said Icebeing, and everyone laughed.
After the show, they all made plans to meet in the studio on 6 December and record two songs - the one they'd played that night, based loosely on their formative train experience, and another one about the unlikely similarities in the sociocultural impacts of pop stars Sir Tom Jones and Madam Sabrina Carpenter in their respective eras. Both songs were released in August the following year on a double-edged single. And the rest is history…