My train is here! Yeh, my train is here!

My train is here!
Originally uploaded by shersteve.

When your train is announced, after waiting for what seems like forever, I am surprised that more people are not dancing like this figure.

The reason they are not is primarily due to their rushing to the doors to get aboard and get a good seat home.

The folks dancing just want to have fun!

When was the last time you danced in the train station?

Maybe the Peace Train is coming

Now I've been happy lately, thinking about the good things to come
And I believe it could be, something good has begun

Oh I've been smiling lately, dreaming about the world as one
And I believe it could be, some day it's going to come

Cat Stevens wrote and sang those words many years ago.

Steven Georgiou, born in 1948 to a Greek father and Swedish mother and raised as a Catholic, became the pop singer Cat Stevens in 1966. Unfulfilled by the trappings of stardom, he spent years searching for a spiritual path. He investigated Buddhism, Taoism, and numerology, but nothing felt right until his brother gave him a copy of the Koran. On Dec. 23, 1977, the musician converted to Islam, soon after changed his name to Yusuf Islam, and then -- as far as the general public was concerned -- disappeared. As far as Yusuf is concerned, "I got a life."

And now Yusuf is back. Interesting story. Read more of it here at the Boston Globe article by Joan Anderman.

I grew up loving the song. I have the Tea for the Tillerman LP album still. I am looking forward to figuring out how to transfer/encode the song from the LP to my iPod (yea, I could probably buy it, but that is the easy way).

The lilting folk-pop on "An Other Cup," Yusuf's first collection of mainstream music since 1978, sounds comfortingly close to his early work. His warm voice has hardly aged. Despite a more explicit spiritual bent, the artist's sentiments remain essentially unchanged. And the timing of Yusuf's return to the spotlight, during a period of bitter discord between Islam and the West, is no coincidence. As a high-profile Muslim with a distinguished musical legacy and a global audience, Yusuf has set out not simply to straddle worlds but to build a bridge between them.

A worthy effort! I hope for the peace train to come.

Cause out on the edge of darkness, there rides a peace train
Oh peace train take this country, come take me home again

Now I've been smiling lately, thinking about the good things to come
And I believe it could be, something good has begun