There's a place...

"Music Monday" concludes.

When Fosco was in college, the subway trains on the Red Line of Boston's T would enter Harvard Square Station (outbound) by marking a wide underground curve. The high-pitched squeal of the tires(?) that you heard in the cars during this maneuver always seemed strangely musical to Fosco and some of his friends--as if the T were doing a piece by Ligeti. Fosco's most musical roommate would even sometimes pretend to conduct the screeches (yeah, he was pretentious like that).

But little did Fosco know that other subways around the country play actual musical compositions. From the NY Times:

The first three notes of the song "Somewhere" from "West Side Story" can be heard underground on some 2, 4 and 5 lines when they depart. This began in 2000 when new cars were introduced, though virgin ears are still discovering the melody today.

You have to love the Times for an article like this--and a long article, at that!

Of course, this just confirms Fosco's opinions about Bernstein's compositions: so annoying that even a subway train could have written them.