After a decade of puttering around on Station Fixation I wanted to celebrate with something fun and perhaps absurd—so I wrote a song. Next, I used an AI to generate vocals and instrumentation, and then I made this music video:
You can also stream the song on:
I’d love to hear from you in the video comments—what’s your favourite station?
Background Story and Commentary
Following the storied Hogtown tradition of artists paying musical tribute to the TTC (e.g. the Shuffle Demons’ Spadina Bus, or the Spoons’ Romantic Traffic), I’ve long harboured a secret idea of expressing my appreciation for Toronto’s subway, with a slightly ridiculous song that not only touches all the stations (circa 2017), but also playfully re-imagines what those automated information messages might sound like, put to a melody.
Despite the TTC’s many challenges and flaws, we can still feel affection for it—we don’t have to be negative all the time. Our subway connects us, moves us, and is critical to the day-to-day functioning of Toronto. As citizens of this city we often simultaneously love, and hate, the TTC. It’s part of our lives!
With this emotional context in mind, I finally got around to bringing the concept towards fruition. I wrote and arranged the lyrics for my song. The looming role of generative artificial intelligence in popular culture fascinates me, so I then used an AI (Suno) to create the vocals and music—I wanted to see where I could take the idea using this recently developed technological innovation.
It took tons of experimentation and innumerable dead-ends (the tool is currently quite primitive), but eventually I wound up with ‘Station Fixation’, an upbeat, yet somehow also wistful tune that TTC riders of all ages can enjoy. Try singing along!
Inspired by a visual sequence in the film Amelie, I centred the video on the adventures of an intrepid garden gnome as he meanders through every station in the system—a symbolic journey that mirrors my own for this seemingly never-ending project. I hope people will delight in recognizing their own favourite station along the way, and find cause to explore new ones in the future.
I also wanted to evoke the past, perhaps nearly-forgotten, sense of genuine hope and enthusiasm that people used to have about rapid transit, back when the subway was new or expanding. Numerous archival and historical photographs as well as newsreel footage are interleaved between stations to set that mood.
I wanted to capture this ephemeral period, before Toronto enters its next major phase of transit growth. It might feel like we’re stagnating because of all the delays, but the Finch West LRT, Crosstown, and Ontario Line are all underway to varying degrees. Change is coming, albeit glacially.
Enjoy the song—and let me know, what’s your favourite station?
My next stop: York University
Previous station: Old Mill
Alphabetical Station Selector