The Playlist for a Long Train Ride
Twenty-two songs for looking out of the window. Ambient, a little melancholy and good at a hundred and ten miles an hour.
There is a particular kind of music for trains. It needs to be steady without being busy, and a little wistful without making you cry in front of strangers. We built this playlist for long journeys, and it has been tested on three of them.
It begins gently, with a few slow, spacious pieces for the first half-hour, when you are still settling into your seat. Around the middle it picks up with something warmer and more rhythmic, because there is a point in every long journey where you need to feel it is going somewhere. The last few tracks are for the approach: quiet again, and slightly hopeful.
Some rules we followed:
- No vocals in the first ten minutes.
- Nothing that needs you to pay attention.
- At least one song that will make you smile at the window.
- The final track should be one you would happily have playing as you step onto the platform.
Headphones are optional. The best tracks work just as well as a low background to the sound of the train.
Written by
Tomás Reyes
Culture editor. Books, film and the occasional long train journey. Believes every exhibition should have somewhere to sit.
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