Chattanooga Choo Choo

"Chattanooga Choo Choo"
"Chattanooga Choo Choo" cover
Song by Glenn Miller Orchestra
Published	August 20, 1941
Recorded	1941
Genre	Big band, swing
Writer(s)	Mack Gordon
Composer(s)	Harry Warren
Language	English, German, Italian (see other versions)
Producer(s)
Music sample
"Chattanooga Choo Choo" A recording by the Glenn Miller AAF Orchestra (with Ray McKinley and The Crew Chiefs on vocals) for the Swing Shift radio broadcast

	The presentation of the gold disc The world's first gold record was presented to Glenn Miller on 10 February 1942 at the CBS Playhouse in New York City
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"Chattanooga Choo Choo" is a 1941 song written by Mack Gordon and composed by Harry Warren. It was originally recorded as a big-band/swing tune by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra and featured in the 1941 movie Sun Valley Serenade.^[1]

Background

The song was an extended production number in the 20th Century Fox film Sun Valley Serenade. The Glenn Miller recording, RCA Bluebird B-11230-B, became the #1 song across the United States on December 7, 1941, and remained at #1 for nine weeks on the Billboard Best Sellers chart.^[2][3][4] The flip side of the single was "I Know Why (And So Do You)", which was the A side.

The song opens up with the band, sounding like a train rolling out of the station, complete with the trumpets and trombones imitating a train whistle, before the instrumental portion comes in playing two parts of the main melody. This is followed by the vocal introduction of four lines before the main part of the song is heard.

The main song opens with a dialog between a passenger and a shoeshine boy:

"Pardon me, boy, is that the Chattanooga Choo-Choo?"

"Track 29!"

"Boy, you can give me a shine."

After the entire song is sung, the band plays two parts of the main melody as an instrumental, with the instruments impersonating the "WHOO WHOO" of the train as the song ends.

The 78-rpm was recorded on May 7, 1941, for RCA Victor's Bluebird label and became the first to be certified a gold disc on February 10, 1942, for 1,200,000 sales. The transcription of this award ceremony can be heard on the first of three volumes of RCA's "Legendary Performer" compilations released by RCA in the 1970s. In the early 1990s a two-channel recording of a portion of the Sun Valley Serenade soundtrack was discovered, allowing reconstruction of a true-stereo version of the film performance.

"Chattanooga Choo Choo, run it down again" – Glenn Miller (right) and his orchestra perform the song in Sun Valley Serenade.

The song was written by the team of Mack Gordon and Harry Warren while traveling on the Southern Railway's Birmingham Special train. The song tells the story of traveling from New York City to Chattanooga. The inspiration for the song, however, was a small, wood-burning steam locomotive of the 2-6-0 type which belonged to the Cincinnati Southern Railway, which is now part of the Norfolk Southern Railway system. That train is now a museum artifact. From 1880, most trains bound for America's South passed through the southeastern Tennessee city of Chattanooga, often on to the super-hub of Atlanta. The Chattanooga Choo Choo did not refer to any particular train, though some have incorrectly asserted that it referred to Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway's Dixie Flyer or the Southern Railway's Crescent Limited. The most notable reason why the song isn't about any particular train is because of the line, "nothing could be finer|than to have your ham and eggs in Carolina." The rails, especially the passenger routes of the early 1900s, ran north and south on either the east or west sides of the Appalachians. Any route from Pennsylvania Station to Chattanooga through Carolina would be disjointed at best.

The composition was nominated for an Academy Award in 1941 for Best Song from a movie. The song achieved its success that year even though it could not be heard on network radio for much of 1941 due to the ASCAP boycott.^[5]

In 1996, the 1941 recording of "Chattanooga Choo Choo" by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Personnel

The personnel on the May 7, 1941, original recording by Glenn Miller and his Orchestra in Hollywood on RCA Bluebird were Paula Kelly, the Modernaires (vocals), Billy May, John Best, Ray Anthony, R.D. McMickle (trumpet), Glenn Miller, Jim Priddy, Paul Tanner, Frank D'Annolfo (trombone), Hal McIntyre, Wilbur Schwartz (clarinet, alto saxophone), Tex Beneke, Al Klink (tenor saxphone), Ernie Caceres (baritone saxophone), Chummy MacGregor (piano), Jack Lathrop (guitar), Trigger Alpert (bass), and Maurice Purtill (drums).

Cover versions

RCA awarded its first "gold record" award to Glenn Miller and His Orchestra in 1942 for selling one million copies of their recording of "Chattanooga Cho Choo".

The song has been recorded by numerous artists, including Beegie Adair, the Andrews Sisters, Ray Anthony, Asleep at the Wheel, BBC Big Band, George Benson, John Bunch, Caravelli, Regina Carter, Ray Charles, Harry Connick, Jr., Ray Conniff, John Denver, Ernie Fields, Stéphane Grappelli and Marc Fosset, John Hammond, Jr., the Harmonizing Four, Harmony Grass, Ted Heath, Betty Johnson, Susannah McCorkle, Ray McKinley, Big Miller, the Muppets, Richard Perlmutter, Oscar Peterson, Elvis Presley, Spike Robinson, Harry Roy, Jan Savitt, Hank Snow, Teddy Stauffer, Dave Taylor, Claude Thornhill, the Tornados, and Guy Van Duser.^[6]

Other notable performances include:

• Cab Calloway and His Orchestra recorded a cover version of "Chattanooga Choo Choo" for Conqueror Records in 1941.
• Carmen Miranda recorded a cover on July 25, 1942, and sang it in the movie Springtime in the Rockies.
• Bill Haley & His Comets released a cover of "Chattanooga Choo Choo" as a 45 single on Essex Records in 1954.
• Pianist Floyd Cramer recorded a single version on RCA Records in 1962.
• UK instrumental group the Shadows recorded a version of the song for their album Dance with the Shadows which reached number two in the UK album charts in 1964.
• The American musical group Harpers Bizarre released a cover version of the song, which reached No. 45 on the U.S. pop chart and spent two weeks at No. 1 on the Easy Listening chart in 1968.^[7]
• An instrumental version of the theme was released 1975 in Germany under the name "Maddox", produced by Dicky Tarrach.^[8]
• In 1978, the studio group Tuxedo Junction recorded a disco version that hit the American Top 40; it peaked at No. 32 Pop and No. 18 on the Easy Listening chart.^[9]
• Haruomi Hosono released a half-Portuguese, half-Japanese cover of the song as the opening track on his 1975 album Tropical Dandy.
• In the 1970s, the tune was used in the UK on an advertisement for Toffee Crisp candy bars, starting with "Pardon me, boy, is that a Toffee Crisp you chew chew," and ending with the punch line "Chew chew Toffee crisp, and you'll go far."
• A cover by Steve Lucky & the Rhumba Bums was featured in the 2005 film Be Cool.
• The song's intro was sampled by That Handsome Devil in their song "Damn Door" for their 2008 debut album A City Dressed in Dynamite.
• Barry Manilow recorded a version on the Singin' With the Big Bands album, 1994.
• The arrangement which became the first gold record of all time was done by Jerry Gray.
• A modern interpretation of the song was recorded by Herb Alpert for his In the Mood album of 2014.

Versions in German and Dutch

1941 sheet music cover, Leo Feist, New York

The tune was adopted twice for German songs. Both songs deal with trains, and both songs start with (different) translations of "pardon me".

The first was created and performed in 1947 by the German pop singer Bully Buhlan (Zug nach Kötzschenbroda). The lyrics are humorously describing the bother of a train ride out of post-war Berlin: no guarantee to arrive at a destination due to coal shortage, passengers traveling on coach buffers, steps and roofs, and never-ending trip interruptions including a night stop for delousing.

The second, Sonderzug nach Pankow, created by the German rock musician Udo Lindenberg in 1983 became very popular and had various political implications. Lindenberg was a West German singer and songwriter with a suitable fan community in East Germany.^[10] He had applied for years to tour the GDR but was rejected several times. ^[10] The 1983 cover version of Chattanooga Choo Choo was directly asking the GDR's Chairman of the Council of State Erich Honecker for permission to hold a concert in the Palace of the Republic (Berlin). ^[10] The song was released on February 2, 1983, and was repeatedly featured in the West as well in the East. The song itself and the Glenn Miller original were temporarily interdicted in the GDR.^[10]

Nevertheless, Lindenberg finally succeeded in getting an invitation to the GDR rock festival Rock for Peace on October 25, 1983, on the condition that Lindenberg would not play Sonderzug nach Pankow at the concert. Honecker, a former brass band drummer of Rotfrontkämpferbund, and Lindenberg exchanged presents in form of a leather jacket and a metal shawm in 1987.^[11] Lindenberg's success at passing the Inner German border peacefully with a humorous song gave him celebrity status as well as a positive political acknowledgement in both West and East Germany. ^[10]

Lindenberg's version was adapted by Dutch singer Willem Duyn as De Eerste Trein Naar Zandvoort ("First train to Zandvoort") chronicling chaos and mayhem on the first seaside train (which he chooses to miss). It was a hit in the summer of 1983. Barry Manilow performed the song "Singin With The Big Bands" with Chattanooga Choo Choo's tune in 1994.

Wartime release

1944 release as a V-Disc by the U.S. War Department

In October 1944, a new recording by Captain Glenn Miller and the Army Air Forces Training Command Orchestra featuring Sgt. Ray McKinley and the Crew Chiefs on vocals was released as a V-Disc by the U.S. War Department, one of a series of recordings sent free by the U.S. War Department to overseas military personnel during World War II.

Legacy and popular culture

Trains are on permanent display at the Terminal Station, in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Today, trains have a pride of place in Chattanooga's former Terminal Station. Once owned and operated by the Southern Railway, the station was saved from demolition after the withdrawal of passenger rail service in the early 1970s, and it is now part of a 30-acre (12-hectare) resort complex, including the Chattanooga Choo-Choo Hotel, and numerous historical railway exhibits. Hotel guests can stay in half of a restored passenger railway car. Dining at the complex includes the Gardens restaurant in the Terminal Station itself, The Station House (which is housed in a former baggage storage room and known for its singing waitstaff) and the "Dinner in the Diner" which is housed in a restored 1941 Class A dining car. The music venue "Track29" is also on the grounds of the Chattanooga Choo Choo hotel in the building that formerly housed the city's only ice rink at the back of the property. The city's other historic station, Union Station, parts of which predated the Civil War, was demolished in 1973; the site is now an office building formerly housing the corporate offices of the Krystal restaurant chain (the restaurant chain offices have since relocated to Atlanta, Georgia). In addition to the railroad exhibits at "the Choo Choo", there are further exhibits at Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum, in east Chattanooga.

The reputation given to the city by the song also has lent itself to making Chattanooga the home of the National Model Railroad Association since 1982.^[12] In addition, the athletic mascot of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga was, for a time, a rather menacing-looking anthropomorphized mockingbird named Scrappy, who was dressed as a railroad engineer and was sometimes depicted at the throttle of a steam locomotive.

Choo Choo VORTAC, a radio aid to navigation, is sited near Chattanooga at 34°57′40.541″N 85°9′12.141″W / 34.96126139°N 85.15337250°W.^[13]

"Chattanooga Choo Choo" has been performed in numerous TV shows, including several episodes of M*A*S*H, 1967 episodes of The Red Skelton Show and The Lawrence Welk Show, and a 2006 episode of Midsomer Murders.^[14]

In addition to TV shows, "Chattanooga Choo Choo"' has been sung in numerous movies, including the 1950 movie The Big Lift, the 1957 movie Peyton Place, the 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora!, the 1984 eponymous film Chattanooga Choo Choo, the 1988 films Big and Biloxi Blues, the 1998 film Babe: Pig in the City, and the 2005 film Be Cool.^[14]

In a notable example of the enduring popularity of the song, "Chattanooga Choo Choo" was performed by Kiss members Ace Frehley and Peter Criss in the 2002 Family Guy episode Road to Europe after Lois Griffin didn't know the lyrics to "Rock and Roll All Nite", causing Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley to walk off stage in the middle of the concert, allowing Frehley and Criss to perform the song.

Woody Herman released a parody of the song in 1942 as "Ooch Ooch a Goon Attach (Backward Song) (Yad O Esor)" as a Decca 78 single, 18364-B, written by Sbocaj Yor, or Roy Jacobs.

The opening line of the song was also parodied in the movie Young Frankenstein. Fredrick Frankenstein arrives at a rail depot and asks "Pardon me, boy; is this the Transylvania Station?" The young shoeshine boy replies "Ja! Ja! Track tventy-nine! Oh, can I give you a shine?"

In the episode "Debra at the Lodge" of the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond one of the men at the lodge (Max) asks Debra if she knows the "Chattanooga Choo Choo," to which she answers "'Pardon me boys?'"

In the episode "Moo-Ma and Moo-Pa" of the comedy series Black Books, Manny's father has a habit of singing the song.

There is a play on words joke connected to this song...Roy Rogers gets a brand new pair of cowboy boots from his lovely wife, Dale Evans. He leaves them out on the porch of his ranch house and, in the morning, discovers they’ve been gnawed by a mountain lion. Roy grabs a rifle and his horse and goes out to kill the varmint. Three hours later Roy’s back with a dead mountain lion tied across his saddle. Dale Evans, his wife, goes up to him and says, ‘Pardon me, Roy. Is that the cat that chewed your new shoes?’

See also

• List of Train Songs
• Outeniqua Choo Tjoe
• List of number-one adult contemporary singles of 1968 (U.S.)

External links

• Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics

References

1. Harry Warren. "Original versions of Chattanooga Choo Choo written by Harry Warren,Mack Gordon - SecondHandSongs".
2. Zebrowski, Carl (April 2006). "Number One on Pearl Harbor Day". America in WWII. Retrieved 27 January 2015.
3. Staff (January 27, 2013). "Song title 328- Chattanooga Choo Choo". Tsort.com. Retrieved 12 February 2013.
4. "Song artist 11 - Glenn Miller".
5. Gilliland, John (1994). Pop Chronicles the 40s: The Lively Story of Pop Music in the 40s (audiobook). ISBN 978-1-55935-147-8. OCLC 31611854. Tape 2, side B.
6. "Chattanooga Choo Choo". Allmusic. Retrieved 2011-11-27.
7. Whitburn, Joel (2002). Top Adult Contemporary: 1961-2001. Record Research. p. 111.
8. "Chatta Nooga 75 at Discogs". Retrieved 2016-08-13.
9. Whitburn, Joel (2002). Top Adult Contemporary: 1961-2001. Record Research. p. 281.
10. "Hallo, Erich - Artikel - SPIEGEL-Archiv". Der Spiegel (in German). wissen.spiegel.de. 13 September. Check date values in: |date= (help);
11. No Panic Pictures of the exchanges of presents. Lindenberg later gave Honecker a guitar with the inscription Gitarren statt Knarren (Guitars not guns) which was not answered.
12. Keane, Maribeth (February 20, 2009). "An Interview With National Model Railroad Association Library Director Brent Lambert". Collectors Weekly. Retrieved 26 June 2012.
13. "Navaid information". AirNav. Retrieved 2016-05-06.
14. "Most Popular Titles With Soundtracks Matching "Chattanooga Choo Choo"". IMDB.com. 2013. Retrieved 12 February 2013.