The dreary British train station that gave the 1960s folk scene its most timeless track
It is difficult to find a true appreciation for the train stations of Britain, particularly if you are a British commuter yourself.
At no point during a daily commute, trudging from one miserable, drizzly platform to another, waiting in vain for a painfully outdated diesel to finally arrive, does the experience feel particularly beautiful. Nevertheless, there are cathedrals everywhere for those with eyes to see, at least if Matisse is to be believed.
Once you remove the generational frustration of train stations – being that the trains are rarely on time and still inexplicably cost an arm and a leg – the buildings themselves are often exceedingly beautiful. Britain is peppered with a network of grandiose Victorian station buildings which have seen millions of weary travellers pass through over the decades; workers travelling into the city, lovers reuniting on platforms, soldiers brimming with the anticipation of a few days’ leave, and, in some cases, musicians about to strike upon their greatest masterpieces.
Back in the 1960s, one particular Victorian train station formed a spark of inspiration for a young songwriter by the name of Paul Simon. During the mid-point of that revolutionary decade, the Newark-born songwriter had relocated to the UK in order to immerse himself in the country’s age-old folk scene, only a few years before he would go on to completely redefine the landscape of American folk.
At one point during his extended residency, Simon found himself rather dejectedly waiting for a train to take him back to London, yearning for his then-girlfriend Kathy Chitty. So, on a scrap of paper on that train platform, he began to sketch out the framework for what would eventually become ‘Homeward Bound’, one of his all-time greatest songwriting efforts, and a major chart success for Simon and Garfunkel upon its eventual release in January 1966.
Unfortunately for musically-inclined trainspotters and enthusiasts, though, the exact train station in which Paul Simon wrote the song is a topic of contention. It is often cited as being Brentwood railway station in Essex, near the Railway Hotel, where Simon took on a residency while in England. There is, however, a plaque commemorating the writing of the song at Widnes station, some 200 miles away.
Meanwhile, friend of Simon Geoff Speed, who put the budding songwriter up in his Liverpool home during the trip, has claimed that ‘Homeward Bound’ was written in two parts, one at his home in Liverpool and the other in Wigan – there might not have been a train station involved at all, if Speed is to be believed, though the lyrics of the song would certainly suggest otherwise.
For his part, Simon has since claimed that he wrote the song in a station somewhere near Liverpool, which certainly fits the bill for Widnes, even though he theorised that it might have been Warrington – adding another contender to the accolade of providing the inspiration for ‘Homeward Bound’.
Whichever specific station Paul Simon wrote his earliest defining moment in the shelter of, it seems as though the dreary drizzle of winter in an unspecified Victorian train station – along with his longing for Kathy Chitty – was the root inspiration for one of the 1960s’ defining folk moments.
