What the song is about
The singer is at a train station at night. They read the timetable on a screen, check their ticket and go down to platform number five. A delay of fifteen minutes holds them up, but they stay calm, get a coffee and finally board. In the end the train leaves the busy town and the journey is back on track.
Useful words
- station / platform / timetable / screen / board: places and things you see at a station
- destination: the place you are travelling to
- ticket, luggage, window seat: things a traveller has or looks for
- escalator: moving stairs
- transfer: changing from one train to another (British English often says connection)
- delay: when a train is late. a sudden delay = a delay nobody expected
- schedule: the plan of times, similar to timetable
- engine, metal wheels, rumble: the sounds and parts of the train
Useful expressions
- look up at the screen: raise your eyes to see something above you
- wait in line: stand in a queue (British: queue)
- The train is coming soon. / It is on its way.: typical station announcements
- I don't really mind.: it doesn't bother me
- step into the train, settle in: get on and make yourself comfortable
- ready to go: prepared to leave
- back on track: going normally again after a problem (here also a joke about real train tracks)
Grammar
- Present simple tells the story step by step: I stand, I check, I grab, I take.
- Present continuous for things happening right now: The timetable is glowing, The train is coming, The board is flashing, The schedule is changing.
- Past simple in the bridge looks back: We waited for a while, the schedule was slow.
- Future: I'll drink a cup of coffee (a quick decision with will) and I'm going to find (going to).
- have to for something necessary: we simply have to stay.
- starts to + verb: The engine starts to rumble.
Careful: changed for the rhyme
- it is upon its way: upon sounds old-fashioned here. In normal speech say it is on its way.
- wait in the line: the usual phrase is wait in line (no the).
- in a digital green: we don't normally put a before a colour like this. Say glowing digital green or glowing green.
- I'll drink a cup of coffee that I'm going to find: this word order is unusual and only there for the rhyme. More natural: I'll go and find a cup of coffee.
- goes quickly up and down: this is a poetic picture of the rhythm, not how people usually describe train wheels.