He May Ride Forever Neath the Streets of Boston

With New York City’s subway and bus fares rising today, it seems fitting to point your attention to the Boston Globe story that gladdened this historian’s heart the morning after Christmas. It tells the real story behind the tune known to generations of New Englanders, “Charlie on the MTA,” the tale of “the man who never returned” from his subway ride. It turns out, the ditty was originally a campaign song for labor organizer and Progressive Party member Walter A. O’Brien, who ran for mayor of Boston in 1949. The song protested a (wait for it) transit fare hike, a central issue in O’Brien’s campaign. O’Brien was later blacklisted out of politics, and when the Kingston Trio recorded the song in 1959 , they edited out its more radical lyrics, well aware of what the blacklist could do their nascent music careers. (Google reveals that Dissent magazine actually beat the Globe by two years with this story.)

Hats off to Boston transit officials for their plans to incorporate this history into public displays about Charlie, who is now omnipresent throughout the system as the icon for the MBTA’s fare card, known as the CharlieCard.