Going on a Train

All music is folk music because it all comes from folks, not horses.  We say that birds sing, but that is anthropomorphism.  From the bird's point of view, he is just declaring that he will kick the ass of any other male bird who infringes on his territory or puts the moves on his lady bird.

I think the lyrics to "Humoresque" were not part of the original piece by Dvorak, they were likely added later as a joke which, in musical jargon is called a "parody", a song that makes fun of another song, and my version was a parody of that parody.  The connecting theme is that they are both about toilets.  You must remember how the toilets on trains used to consist of nothing more than a hole in the floor with a seat over it.  Although certainly not environmentally sound by today's standards, it was not considered a problem at the time except when the train was standing in the station.  The few times I rode trains in those days, the conductor solved it by locking the bathroom door.  I'm not sure if train conductors ever did intone the chant "Passengers will please refrain...….".  Perhaps they did, but maybe it's just fanciful nostalgia for a real or imagined time when people were more formal and polite about such things.  The "I love you part" is, of course, incongruous with the rest of the song, which is what makes it funny.

A song is nothing but a poem set to music.  When I had to write a poem in school, I used to imagine a familiar song and write different words to it, which I found to be easier than learning all that stuff about rhyme and meter.  My original delivery about porta-potty etiquette was neither poetic nor musical, but the fan who approached me later thought that it should be, I suppose because the message was so compelling.  When he suggested the tune, it was easy for me to fill in the words just like I used to do in school.  I doubt that the creative process is the same for all songwriters as it was not even the same for all the songs I composed over the years.  This was just one example of how it might work for some people in some instances.