Songs of the Week: "Spadina Bus" by the Shuffle Demons (1985), "London Underground" by Kay and Biswas (2005) and "Going Underground" by The Jam (1980)

Update, February 12th, 2007: A week has passed and the attached songs are no longer available.

In the spirit of yesterday’s Toronto Transit Camp (which I wrote about in this entry), I thought I’d post a transit-related song. The problem is that I only have the best-known song about Toronto Transit — the Shuffle Demons’ Spadina Bus (a minor hit here in Canada in the 1980s) — in vinyl format. Luckily, someone uploaded the video to YouTube and I present it below:

Of course, as most locals know, there is no longer a Spadina Bus — it’s been replaced by the Spadina streetcar.

Yesterday, we talked about ideas that were worth borrowing from other cites. Among the transit systems mentioned — Cologne, Montreal’s Metro, New York’s MTA and the “T”, the transit system of Boston, my second home — was London’s famed tube system. The tube, for all its plusses, has it downsides, and they’re captured excellently in a song called London Underground by Adam Kay and Suman Biswas. Be forewarned: there’s swearing aplenty in this song!

If the tune to London Underground sounds familiar, it’s because it’s borrowed from Going Underground by The Jam. As a bonus blast from the past, here’s the video for Going Underground from my high school days, over 20 years ago. Geez, I’m old…