I've Got A Thing About Trains Or The Role Played By The Locomotive In Blues, Folk And Country

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As I was sitting on the train back from Liverpool yesterday, it struck me (again) quite how key the image of the train was/is in a certain brand of American music. Part of this was sparked off by reading Greil Marcus' Mystery Train but part was my own observations.

So let's list songs that talk about trains and try and work out why...

― Jim Robinson (Original Miscreant), Sunday, 1 February 2004 12:48 (twenty-one years ago)

To begin:

1. I've Got A Thing About Trains - Johnny Cash
2. Mystery Train - Elvis Presley/Little Junior Parker

To me, songs about trains are almost equivalent to modern songs about being a big rock star, most obviously things like 'I'm Leaving On A Jet Plane'. They hint at getting away from all this, the glamour and myth of it, while underpinning that with melancholy. Hence all the songs about your baby leaving on the 5:19. The 'baby' seems to be anyone who's left this place behind, managed to escape the toil but simulataneously escaping the community and culture that bred them and and the music they listen to. Or, more precisely, the 'baby' can be the person singing who, by implication, has managed to escape to the extent where you will hear their pop songs. So, glamour and sadness.

They also seem to hint at the real world coming in to this Marcusian South, the industry and other people who reveal the world as all too mundane.

Anyone else?

― Jim Robinson (Original Miscreant), Sunday, 1 February 2004 12:57 (twenty-one years ago)

Top Scottish band that no-one-in-the-world-but-me likes, The Humpff Family, have a song called "Love, Death, Divorce, Prison, Alcohol, Rivers and Trains" about this very subject (key images in American music). I will go and dig out the proper lyrics and report back.

― ailsa (ailsa), Sunday, 1 February 2004 12:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Sounds spot on ailsa...

― Jim Robinson (Original Miscreant), Sunday, 1 February 2004 13:26 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh c'mon, this is so easy. The famous one, Rock Island Line.

― David Allen (David Allen), Sunday, 1 February 2004 18:00 (twenty-one years ago)

There's more than one famous one...

― Jim Robinson (Original Miscreant), Sunday, 1 February 2004 19:00 (twenty-one years ago)

A local punk band has a song called "Trains Aren't Always Metaphors for Sex". Before this thread I wasn't convinced that that was true, but you make some good points.

― Sonny A. (Keiko), Sunday, 1 February 2004 19:25 (twenty-one years ago)

Life Is Like A Mountain Railroad, Jerry Lee Lewis
Lonesome Train, JJ Cale
Midnight Train, Wayne Newman & The Torques

― rumple, Sunday, 1 February 2004 19:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Gladys Knight & the Pips - "Midnight Train to Georgia"

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Sunday, 1 February 2004 20:03 (twenty-one years ago)

I have an entire chapter on this in my second book: seven-page "Train Rock" chapter in *Accidental Evolution of Rock 'n'Roll,* p. 259-265, starts with "Casey Jones" by T. Lawrence Siebert and Eddie Newton, 1908, and "Black Diamond Express to Hell" by Reverend A.W. Nix, 1927 (now available on *Goodbye Babylon* gospel comp). Another great essay you should hunt around for is "Doin' the Locomotion: a Rock'n'Roll Memoir" by Michael Freedberg, *Boston Phoenix,* 1980. Good luck!

― chuck, Sunday, 1 February 2004 21:08 (twenty-one years ago)

Wow, cheers Chuck. I'll have a look around for them.

Is your book available in the UK?

― Jim Robinson (Original Miscreant), Sunday, 1 February 2004 22:50 (twenty-one years ago)

It's available here; don't know if they take sixpence or half-crowns or ha'pennies or not, though:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0306807416/o/qid%3D983279041/sr%3D8-2/ref%3Daps%5Fsr%5Fb%5F1%5F2/104-1561824-5902303

Here's a typical review, by the way!:

>>How could anyone possibly like this book?, April 17, 2002
Reviewer: A reader from Sayreville, NJ
This is the worst thing I have ever tried to read. I can't believe anyone would give this guy a book contract.<<

― chuck, Sunday, 1 February 2004 23:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Grand Funk railroad?

― Sasha (sgh), Sunday, 1 February 2004 23:45 (twenty-one years ago)

This is the worst thing I have ever tried to read

TRIED to read. Cutting. I read those other reviews. Sounds like I'll like it. I like it when people think I'm being obscure by talking about the likes of Debbie Gibson.

― Jim Robinson (Original Miscreant), Monday, 2 February 2004 00:09 (twenty-one years ago)

you should see the newish film "Riding the Rails" that has a blues soundtrack. Great doco about depression kids taking to the road.

― paulhw (paulhw), Monday, 2 February 2004 00:39 (twenty-one years ago)

"Rain Steam and Speed"- Men They Couldn't Hang (tangentially- named after a JMW Turner painting of a train)

I've seen a disproportionate number of punk kids around these parts who've lost limbs trying (unsuccessfully, apparently) to live the hobo lifestylee.

― Donna Brown (Donna Brown), Monday, 2 February 2004 08:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah I too love every song about trains. Yet ironically I hate the band Train.

― sym (shmuel), Monday, 2 February 2004 09:51 (twenty-one years ago)

"Train Song" Tom Waits

― Huck Stable (Horace Mann), Monday, 2 February 2004 18:29 (twenty-one years ago)

That docu looks pretty interesting paulhw. Shall seek it out.

It's struck me that this may be a peculiarly American thing. Do other countries have such an obsession? Can't really think of any good British examples. Anyone?

― Jim Robinson (Original Miscreant), Monday, 2 February 2004 18:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Duh. Trans-Europe Express obviously, for non-US train songs. Pardon my temporary amnesia.

Do you think that song is what the old blues songs about trains sounded like to the UK blues players in the sixties?

― Jim Robinson (Original Miscreant), Monday, 2 February 2004 18:57 (twenty-one years ago)

There was a nice piece by Warren Zanes in the LA Times last month about locomotive whistles and American music - I don't have a link but it was called The End of the Lonely Call of the Rails, if anyone wants to look for it...

― Rick Spence (spencerman), Monday, 2 February 2004 19:04 (twenty-one years ago)

there are a few Cdn Train songs, mostly be Wilf Carter. (known in the USA as Montana Slim)

― Huck Stable (Horace Mann), Monday, 2 February 2004 19:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Take the 'A' Train?

― Jordan (Jordan), Monday, 2 February 2004 19:06 (twenty-one years ago)

"Blacklisted" by Neko Case

― Gear! (Gear!), Monday, 2 February 2004 19:06 (twenty-one years ago)

"(Do the) Locomotion"

― Huck Stable (Horace Mann), Monday, 2 February 2004 19:07 (twenty-one years ago)

Railroad Jerk

― Huck Stable (Horace Mann), Monday, 2 February 2004 19:11 (twenty-one years ago)

Just thought:

'She'll Be Coming Round The Mountain' - definitely a sex metapohor I think.

― Jim Robinson (Original Miscreant), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 23:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Metaphor

― Jim Robinson (Original Miscreant), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 23:32 (twenty-one years ago)

"Folsom Prison Blues" Johnny Cash
"Rock Island Line" Johnny Cash
hell, ALL of Johnny Cash

"O Poor Pitiful Me" most well known version by Linda Ronstadt

― Orbit (Orbit), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 09:10 (twenty-one years ago)

also 500 Miles, most well kown version by Peter, Paul and Mary

― Orbit (Orbit), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 09:12 (twenty-one years ago)

vernon dalhart - the wreck of the old '97 (1924)
jimmie rodgers - waiting for a train (1928)
moonshine kate - my mans a jolly railroad man (1931)
vernon dalhart - runaway train (1931)

― zappi (joni), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 09:46 (twenty-one years ago)

'train from kansas city' by the shangri-la's

― pete b. (pete b.), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 09:46 (twenty-one years ago)

"The Train Kept a Rollin'" Johnny Burnett

― OCP (OCP), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 15:01 (twenty-one years ago)

"Scenic Railway" Serge Gainsbourg

― Huckadelphia (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 15:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Merritt's 'Baby I was Born on a Train' is cute tribute to this genre.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 15:07 (twenty-one years ago)

I hear the train a comin'
It's rollin' 'round the bend,
And I ain't seen the sunshine,
Since, I don't know when,
I'm stuck in Folsom Prison,
And time keeps draggin' on,
But that train keeps a-rollin',
On down to San Antone.

This verse, in fact this whole song, seems to be all about what I was thinking.

I'd let that lonesome whistle,
Blow my Blues away.

Perfect

― Jim Robinson (Original Miscreant), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 17:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Similarly:

I see the travelers comin'
I watch them rollin' down the line
I see the transits movin'
I remember the railroad line. - Gene Clark

― may pang (maypang), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 17:43 (twenty-one years ago)

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