change for Jamaica Plain

 

        If you're wondering where you heard that "never returned" song highlighted here yesterday, it might have been on the TV show, "Malcolm in the Middle."  The Gentleman Callers sang it.

        Sometimes it's called "The Man Who Never Returned" and some people know it by the title, "Charlie on the MTA."

        MTA stood for Metropolitan Transit Authority.  By the time I lived in Boston during school, it had been changed to MBTA -- Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.  They operate trains on tracks that run through underground tunnels in some places, and above ground in other parts of the city.  They have buses, too.

On You Tube, there are covers of the song -- play this one for yourself, it's good.

video title:  Carolina Rebels - The Man Who Never Returned

uploader:  TheCarolinaRebels

        They're singing it with their Southern accents -- and certainly having fun!  In the second verse where it says,

Charlie handed in his dime at the Kendall Square station

And he changed for Jamaica Plain,

the Carolina vocalist articulates clearly,

"and he changed for Jamaica Train"...

It's a natural mistake -- they are singing a song about a guy riding on a train.  Jamaica Plain is a neighborhood in Boston.

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According to the online Encyclopedia,

----------------- [excerpt] ---------------- The song has become so entrenched in Boston lore that the Boston-area transit authority named its electronic card-based fare collection system the "CharlieCard" as a tribute to this song.

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