Combing through old sounds I recorded with a field recorder and super-sensitive nature microphone I found this short clip of an above ground subway arriving at and departing from the 39th Avenue station in Astoria/Long Island City. When the new subway cars came out years ago I was among the first to notice that the trains emitted the beginnings of the tune from “Somewhere”, from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story. I thought of this when it was announced that Sam Smith would be paying royalties to Tom Petty for the “musical accident” in which Smith’s song “Stay With Me” inadvertently sounded a little too much like Petty’s “Stand By Me”. I don’t expect that the Bernstein estate would sue the MTA for royalties but I imagine at least one lawyered-up meeting was held to discuss the possibility. The “Somewhere” tune rises up at about 1:02.