A new Geordie version of a classic country music song has been released with its inspiration coming from the Tyne and Wear Metro.

A local mandolin group has rewritten ‘I’ve Been Everywhere’, by substituting a ride on the Metro for a journey across North America. The most famous version of ‘I’ve Been Everywhere’ was by the legendary American musician Johnny Cash.

Tom Cronin, Musical Director of the Tyneside Mandolin Orchestra, came up with the idea for a rework of the song that includes the names of every Metro station.

The Metro version explores the familiar Metro system from South Hylton to Airport on the green line, and to South Shields and St James on the yellow line, and the orchestra has recorded it and shared it on its YouTube channel.

Written in 1959 by the Australian country singer Geoff Mack, ‘I’ve Been Everywhere’ mentions many locations in his country and was popularised by fellow Australian Lucky Starr with a hit version in 1962.

It reached new heights the same year when Canadian-American country legend Hank Snow released a new version of it.

Since then, many artists have covered it, featuring different lyrics about their native lands. In 1996 Johnny Cash covered the song on his album ‘Unchained’, which became a tremendous success and helped earn him a Grammy for that year’s ‘Best Country Album’.

The Geordie version of the song was the brainchild of Tom Cronin, Musical Director of the Tyneside Mandolin Orchestra which is based in Jesmond in Newcastle.

Last year, Jesmond was one of the stations where a group of young artists from the Baltic Centre For Contemporary Art in Gateshead displayed their works of art.

A nod to Geordie culture was recently given by train operator Lumo by service the unique North East delicacy, ‘stottie’ sandwiches, on its train services between Edinburgh and London.

Everyone in our group has really loved working on the song and then performing it. It’s just been great fun.

I had heard the song on the radio one day and an idea came to me about reworking it somehow to make a localised version. The idea was to swap out the American locations for Tyne and Wear Metro stations, and we set about that task as a group.

The challenge was shoe-horning our lyrics into the rhythm of the song, and then adapting the chorus. I’m really pleased with what we’ve came up with.

We’re delighted that Nexus liked the song and that they asked us to perform it live for their customers at Jesmond Metro station.

Tom Cronin, Musical Director of the Tyneside Mandolin Orchestra