Among the many great performances at this year’s Shrewsbury Folk Festival was a performance of The Train by Show of Hands (also our Song of the Day) during which they were joined by Dayam Khan who is a member of Dhun Dhora of Rajasthan who were at the festival with brilliant Shooglenifty. Shooglenifty and Dhun Dhora have been touring in support of their forthcoming new album Written in Water which is out on 9 November 2018 and can be pre-ordered here.
The Train song was originally inspired by a trip that Steve Knightley and Phil Beer made in the late 90s to India and an overnight 10-hour train journey to Hyderabad in Southern India. On the train they met a Muslim man who was returning home for the first time in fifty years. He had fled to Pakistan at the time partition and was returning home to visit his brother and family. They were amazed by the number of people waiting at the train platform to greet him.
https://shrewsburyfolkfestival.co.uk/