This song is hardly new–it came out five years ago, in fact–but it’s new to me. David Bowie’s “5:15″ came up on my iPod this morning, and the lyrics made me wonder if Mr. Stardust got around the U.K. and New York via commuter train, not in a chaffeured Escalade.

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5:15/I’m changing trains
This little town/Let me down
This foreign rain/Brings me down
 

5:15/Train overdue [Editor’s Note: Word up, Bowie!]
Angels have gone
No ticket/I’m jumping tracks/I’m changing towns

A quick search of MTA departures doesn’t reveal a 5:15 train, though there is a 5:16 to Stamford and a 5:17 to Tarrytown.

What’s also weird is that the Who recorded a different “5:15″ song for Quadrophenia. That one’s about taking drugs on the train to Brighton. Its chorus goes, “I left by brain on the train…” — coincidentally, that line was one of the finalists to be the name of this blog.