Ode to Midnight Train to Georgia

Midnight Train to Georgia by Gladys Knight and the Pips was released in August 1973. This is a beautiful song that I initially enjoyed all through that summer.

I heard it multiple times a day on WTOY, the local soul music station, and it received heavy rotation at my neighborhood dances. Once, Midnight Train to Georgia was playing as I got out of my mother's car at her apartment complex.

When I opened the car door, I could hear Gladys and her Pips singing from the stereos at several apartments where front doors were open. They were all tuned in to "Toy Radio", and I sang along.

I also listened as the song rose each week in Casey Kasem's Top 40 Countdown and cheered when it reached number 1. I was elated it held the top spot for 2 weeks on Billboard's Hot 100 in October 1973.

My brothers, my cousins, and I called it "the jam" and loved singing along. You may be wondering how I went from loving a hit song to hating it, and I am about to tell you.

My attitude began to shift later in the fall because of my great-grandmother Florence. We slept in the same bedroom where we were watching The Flip Wilson Show one night when Gladys Knight and the Pips were guests.

They were singing Midnight Train to Georgia when my great-grandmother asked, "Don't they know another song? They sing this one all the time". I realized she had also heard them sing their hit tune on The Carol Burnett Show and The Sonny and Cher Show.

She probably got tired of my brothers and me listening to it on the radio and thought the group was one-hit wonders. Gladys, her brother Bubba Knight, and their cousins William Guest and Edward Patton had several hit songs, but my grandma had only been hearing this one for several months.

Her words had a profound effect on me, and I began to cringe when I heard Midnight Train on the Eight-track player that was on my Junior High School bus morning and evening.

When I visited my Great Aunt Gladys, one of her sons played this tune often on the stereo, and I was annoyed. It was everywhere and won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo, Group or Chorus.

Some of my friends would pretend to be Gladys and her Pips and sing Midnight Train to Georgia. I heard it so much that the chorus stuck in my head, and I began to hate the hit.

From that point, when I saw the group singing on The Midnight Special and other programs, I snickered at the choreographed movements of the Pips, which were always the same.

I had to hear Midnight Train on the radio during my monthly trip to the hairdresser and could not escape. I was thankful when Gladys and the Pips released a new single, Imagination, which began climbing the charts.

Midnight Train was the biggest hit for Gladys and her Pips, but I was thankful when it was no longer popular, receiving play on the radio or being sung by everyone.

A few years ago, I heard Midnight Train to Georgia on an oldies station, and instead of turning it off, I began to cry. Memories of being 15 and everyone playing the song came to mind.

Happy thoughts of slow dancing to it at our parties, and hearing it all over town hit me hard. I recalled the boy I was in love with then who had recently died.

Most of all, memories of my great-grandmother expressing her opinion on Gladys Knight and the Pips made me wistful. She died two years after that night in 1975.

My great-grandmother, my boyfriend, one of my brothers, my mom, my aunt, and so many who were part of that period have now passed on. It's amazing how different things seem in hindsight.

What I had considered a typical summer and fall was now in my memory banks as the good old days. I welcome the flow of memories the next time I hear Midnight Train to Georgia. I now cherish the song as part of my coming of age.