Charlie and The MTA - Ukulele, Banjo and Bass

This song, originally titled 'M.T.A.', was written by Jacqueline Steiner and Bess Lomax Hawes in 1949 for the Boston mayoral campaign of Walter O'Brien. The song's melody and chord progression closely resembles another train song called "Wreck of the Old 97", and even earlier song called "The Ship That Never Returned". M.T.A was made famous by the Kingston Trio and their 1959 recording of it. There is another excellent recording of this song on YouTube by the Canadian a cappella band 'The Heebee-jeebees' which I would recommend listening to.

This song tells a humourous story about a man taking the subway and not being allowed to leave because he didn't have enough money to pay the exit fare. During the time period, the city had added exit fares on their subway lines in order to collect more money without making modification to the automated turnstile fare collectors. If elected as mayor, Mr. O'Brien promised to do away with the exit fares to prevent the type of situation in the song from happening. From what I have read, Walter O'Brien had several songs written and recorded for his campaign about many of his platform items. Since he couldn't afford radio advertisement, he played the songs over a loudspeaker on a truck which was driven all over the city. He received a hefty $10 fine for disturbing the peace. Unfortunately Walter O'Brien was never elected as mayor, but the story of Charlie lives on in the Boston subway with the "CharlieCard", the present day electronic card-based fare collection system.

The song has a great story and a great melody. This was always one of my favourite songs that we used to sing when I was a Camper and CIT at Camp Ponacka. The lyrics of this song have many variations from different recordings I have heard. I chose to use a combination of the Kingston Trio lyrics along with some of the ones from the Camp Ponacka songbook. I even added one of my own lyrics, can anybody guess which one it was?

This is the first video where I used my Banjo as a rhythm instrument, and it seems quite fitting being that it is only a 3 chord song.

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Category:

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[nhoj1948]

Good job on the song. How did you do the video effects?

[dragoon1488]

Great job. Keep up it up!

[TenaciousFlea]

what a fantastic tune! never heard this one before although i play wreck of the old '97 all the time.

[Metzgermeister77]

@CCSinventions C, F, C, G.

[CrackSizzlack]

this is dope

[Chris090883]

I still prefer the original by The Kingston Trio, the dueling banjo's just give it what that version is lacking. No offense man, it's still a good version, but the original had them singing with all the pickin

[CCSinventions]

UKE CHORDS?

[paxukulele]

Love the harmony and the clone effect! Great job!

[MrSteaknTaters]

@slimES104block all one guy. editing will mess with your brain though huh

[slimES104block]

Are you all bothers?