The Christmas Tree Ship (EP) explained

The Christmas Tree Ship
Type:	EP
Artist:	I Like Trains
Border:	yes
Released:	24 November 2008
Genre:	Post-Rock
Length:	22:10
Label:	Beggars Banquet
Producer:	I Like Trains
Prev Title:	Elegies to Lessons Learnt
Prev Year:	2007
Next Title:	He Who Saw The Deep
Next Year:	2010

The Christmas Tree Ship is the second EP by I Like Trains. It was released on 24 November 2008.

It is an entirely instrumental concept album, based on the storm that sank the Rouse Simmons.

The Rouse Simmons was a schooner that for twenty years delivered Christmas trees to Chicago, until on the night of November 23, 1912 it was lost in a storm on Lake Michigan, with all hands and a full cargo of Christmas trees.^[1]

The five track titles relate to different aspects of the story.

• The Christmas Tree Ship is about the sinking of the Rouse Simmons itself.
• South Shore, Two Brothers and Three Sisters were the names of three other ships that sank the same night.
• Friday, Everybody Goodbye is the opening sentence of a message in a bottle^[2] thrown into the sea by the captain of the Rouse Simmons.

The album was released as a limited-edition CD and DVD, but the general release was only as an MP3 download. Since then, I Like Trains have made the album a one-track EP for download.

Track listing

1. "The Christmas Tree Ship"
2. "South Shore"
3. "Two Brothers"
4. "Three Sisters"
5. "Friday, Everybody Goodbye"

Notes and References

1. About The Christmas Tree Ship on I Like Trains' website. "The Christmas Tree Ship".
2. Jacobson-Tews, Lori. Pier Wisconsin. "The Story of the Rouse Simmons (page 4) ". Accessed 12 January 2007.