Composed for Craig Hella Johnson and Conspirare the composer writes: Same Train in many arrangements seems to sing of good news coming. But - maybe it was the relentlessness the conclusiveness of the titlephrase - I wondered if what was coming might actually have been a funeral train: coming for our sister our mother and soon enough for us too. I thought of so many other spirituals which sing about dark truths in bright music and wondered if I couldn't use the imitative ch-ch-train ostinato to honour that willfully smiling aspect of the piece while also freeing the harmonies to make audible the more disconsolate feelings underneath.
