Orange Blossom Special is often called the national anthem of fiddle players, a musical imitation of a luxury all-Pullman train that ran from New York to Miami. Its true author, Ervin T. Rouse, born in 1917 and died in 1981, lived quietly in the Florida Everglades, copyrighted the tune in 1938 and recorded it with his brother Gordon in 1939, before the train even began passenger service to Jacksonville. This episode explores how a reclusive man's composition became a global gauntlet for instrumentalists and why so many others tried to claim it.

The hosts dissect the mechanical terror of playing the piece, from shuffle bowing that mimics chugging wheels to sliding double stops that imitate a steam whistle, all built on a 12-bar blues form. They then weigh Chubby Wise's colorful story of sneaking onto the train at 3 a.m. against the copyright ...