Walter O’Brien: The Man Who Never Returned
In 1949, the Boston People’s Artists wrote “MTA” for a left-wing candidate. The song became a hit — the man behind it disappeared.
Most Americans know the song “MTA,” popularized by the Kingston Trio in 1959. It’s the one about a “man named Charlie” doomed to “ride forever ’neath the streets of Boston . . . the man who never returned.” What’s forgotten, however, is that the song was originally made for a left-wing political campaign.
Written in 1949, the song protested a five-cent fare increase imposed by Boston’s Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA). Fighting the fare hike was an important element of Walter A. O’Brien Jr’s platform. The Progressive Party candidate for mayor, O’Brien opposed the state legislature’s taxpayer-funded bailout of the system’s previous operator, the privately owned Boston Elevated Company.
When the Kingston Trio’s 1959 version hit number fifteen on the Billboard charts, though, listeners didn’t hear Walter O’Brien’s name. In the last verse, the performers changed his first name from Walter to George — not because it was easier to sing but because of the Red Scare.
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