Just to keep John’s emo pants on a little longer…this election day is different for me than any of the others I’ve experienced. I know it won’t be good and I know we’ll hear a lot of shit about right-center nations and liberal overreach and (Bobo has already started on this one) Republican humility, but I don’t think it’s clear at all how things will turn out.
Suppose this really is the curb-stomping that the pundits are predicting. I don’t see Obama transitioning to V-Chip-and-school-uniform mode as quickly as Clinton did. On the other hand, I have nothing against bringing some David Gergen-type douchebag aboard if it gets some good ink from the Village.
On the other hand, suppose Republicans don’t take the House. You know what happens then: endless Fox News stories about how ACORN and the Black Panther Party stole the election, followed by Andy Alexander columns about how the Post should pay more attention to these “stories”, followed by ABC News handing the reins of “This Week” over to Andrew Breitbart.
In the meantime, I’m thinking happy thoughts:
- Bacon-infused bourbon. (I went to this place last week and I was pleasantly surprised how much everyone there looked like someone you’d meet at the Applebee’s salad bar, despite its being in the East Village — I was expecting either banksters or too-young people.)
- Michael Berube lays down some weapons grade snark, blows away many of his commenters.
- What is your favorite song that involves trains? I would probably have to go with “Love In Vain”, but there are a lot of other strong candidates. Why are there so many more good songs involving trains than other forms of travel?
Nikki
Love on a Real Train by Tangerine Dream.
Garm
My favorite train song is “Thank You Lord For Sending Me The F-Train.” by Mike Doughty.
I don’t know why there are so many good train songs. There are a lot of songs about cars as well, but few about planes. I wonder if it stems from the contemplative nature of travel by train (or car… no one really sings about sitting in traffic).
henqiguai
Dude, you drinkin’ or are you really that to’e up about the potential election outcome ?
* “Bacon-infused bourbon. (I went to this place last week and I was surprised hot much everyone…”
Um, that’s “how”.
* “…blows away many of hit commenters.”
“His” ?
Andy K
Rhythm, in many cases I suppose.
Johnny Mercer On The Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe
Linda Featheringill
Train Kept A Rollin
I like Aerosmith but there are other covers.
DougJ
@Garm:
What are the really great car songs? “Racing in the Streets”, “‘Ol 55”, “Fire”, what else?
Steve
Ron Brownstein (h/t Ezra) had some thoughts on the Clinton/Obama comparison. I love Bill Clinton to this day, but Obama’s first two years blow his out of the water.
Linda Featheringill
I also like City of New Orleans, no matter who does it.
DougJ
@henqiguai:
I always make a lot of typos.
KRK
City of New Orleans
Comrade Luke
Train in Vein, baby.
licensed to kill time
I hear that 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
Folsom Prison Blues, Johnny Cash
(you can practically feel the train a’comin :)
nevsky42
Driver 8, take a break, we can’t reach our destination…
jinxtigr
I’ve got no expectations that I can come up with a train song :)
henqiguai
@henqiguai (#3): Can’t edit the damned thing with over three minutes on the clock. Word Press is the evil, illegitimate, and unnatural off-spring of Darth Cheney and and an uncapped toxic waste dump.
ChrisB
Well, I must be part of The Daily Show demographic because I still like “Love Train” by the O’Jays.
And I’ll join the others in the club car of The City of New Orleans.
moe99
whatthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com/
Damn fine listing.
mr. whipple
Mystery Train, version from The Last Waltz with Paul Butterfield. Love in Vain on Get Yer Ya Yas Out is smokin’.
Davis X. Machina
@licensed to kill time:
Lonesome train on a lonesome track
I’m going away, ain’t coming back
I’m going somewhere far from my baby
On a lonesome train, on a lonesome track …
Andy K
@DougJ:
Well, the song that a lot of historians consider the first of the rock ‘n’ roll genre is a car song.
Jackie Brenston & His Delta Cats (featuring Ike Turner)
Rocket 88
Note the rhythm- very train-like.
flukebucket
“It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry”
henqiguai
@DougJ (#9):
You do ? I don’t seem to recall that. Um, and I used to think I had a certain facility with the language, too; uh oh…
Oh, and that’s the “New Black Panther Party”. There’s a difference.
mk3872
I will predict this: When the Dems regroup in 2011 and call-out the fiscally-irresponsible and dangerous Tea Baggers in the House, the MSM will call Dems “SORE LOSERS“.
Which is something you would NEVER see or hear George Will or Mark Halperin call the Repubs or John McCain after they threw temper tantrums after their drubbing in 2008.
JonathanW
The first song that popped into my head was Midnight Train to Georgia.
I used to like Love Train until it got hijacked by Coors Light.
Dave
You know, I have been thinking about what will happen if/when the GOP doesn’t take the Senate and, possibly, the House.
The overwhelming narrative has been that the GOP will roll to victory. That the voice of the people will be heard!! So what happens if, in their eyes, it isn’t?
These are the same voters whose candidates talk about “Second Amendment solutions” and say they didn’t bring their guns to DC…this time.
John thought the Teatards went mental in his epic “peak wingnut” post…and then was proven wrong on almost a daily basis. What happens if they, in their eyes, are “denied” the victory that is supposed to be theirs in 2010?
That said, the GOP can go fuck themselves.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
I thought this was an all Beatles blog?
One After 909
Ticket to Ride
I Should Have Known Better
Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds
Strawberry Fields Forever
Nicole
I like “Small Favors” by Fountains of Wayne.
Oh, and “MTA” by the Kingston Trio. Do subway trains count?
Zifnab
That would be the best of all possible worlds. The media implodes in a shit storm of “We hate colored people” faux scandal and ABC, WaPo, and the rest all take off their masks.
But I don’t see it happening. We’re going to lose a good Senator in Russ Feingold, maybe another in Patty Murry, and we’re going to lose the House. At this point, it’s just a matter of how badly we lose and if we can move to reclaim it all in ’12.
So don’t tantalize me with these sugar plum fairies DougJ.
BudP
This Train
the Bunny version, the Bob version, or the Wailers version
Amir_Khalid
Train songs?
Land of Hope and Dreams — Bruce Springsteen
Canadian Railroad Trilogy — Gordon Lightfoot
PeakVT
Jimi.
ETA: Station Blues (though I like the NMAS album version better).
ts
@Linda Featheringill: I’m with ya. Goodman’s original is beautiful and his imagery — “magic carpets made of steel” — still lovely after all these years. (btw, if you like Goodman and/or baseball, it doesn’t get much better than this)
Brachiator
Curtis Mayfield, of course. People Get Ready,
And for the funk of it, Gap Band, Party Train
Andy K
‘King’ Louis Jordan & The Tympany 5
Choo Choo Ch’Boogie
Sentient Puddle
Uh…first one that really came to mind was Crazy Train. I know, unoriginal. Though because Driver 8 was mentioned earlier, I’ma go with that.
On the note of booze, Saint Arnold released their Divine Reserve #10 today. Two sixers should hopefully be enough for watching the returns tonight.
The De-Lurker at The Threshold
“I Often Dream of Trains” by Robyn Hitchcock
“Fear of Trains” by The Magnetic Fields
Bubblegum Tate
My birthday was a few days ago, and I got all sorts of great new kitchen gear, turning my kitchen from a sorry display into a properly-equipped cooking area. I’m too busy enjoying the hell out of that–and the fact that my awesome girlfriend had Maryland blue crab overnighted out here to the Bay for my birthday dinner–to be too emopants about the election. Plus, I’m trying to take the sanguine view of things these days.
Favorite song involving trains: “(It’s Not the Express) It’s the JB’s Monaurail” by the JB’s.
RedKitten
Definitely “Midnight Train to Georgia”. It’s kind of autobiographical for me.
RedKitten
No love for “Chatanooga Choo-Choo”? :)
Davis X. Machina
Draw Your Brakes.
Forward and fiaca
Menacle and den gosaca….
Exact riddim’ of a 15 mph goods train….
MattR
Take the A Train?
Or if we go to the album Billy Breathes by Phish we can listen to “Cars, Trucks and Buses” as well as “Train Song”
David Hunt
City of New Orleans. The Arlo Guthry version most of all.
Kryptik
Between Midnight Train to Georgia or Long Train Running by Doobie Bros. Kinda having a hard time deciding.
Phyllis
The greatest train song ever: You Never Even Called Me By My Name.
Andy K
@RedKitten:
I was gettin’ there! I’m working backwards from 1945.
Maude
City of New Orleans
At least, I hope that’s the title.
Jacel
“Last of the Steam-Powered Trains” — The Kinks (from “The Village Green Preservation Society”)
Judas Escargot
I Often Dream of Trains…, Robyn Hitchcock.
Spent way too much of my senior year listening to that album.
cleek
Driver 8 (REM)
Casey Jones (Dead)
I Often Dream of Trains (Robyn Hitchcock)
Train That Carried My Girl From Town (Doc Watson)
Blue Train (Coltrane)
The Train Song (Belew)
Locomotive Breath?
geg6
@Comrade Luke:
This.
(Except it’s “Train in Vain,” sorry to be so anal about that).
And I’ve always liked “Runaway Train” by Soul Asylum. Always found the lyrics and video to be moving:
dailymotion.com/video/x20ao1_soul-asylum-runaway-train_people
DougJ
@RedKitten:
A superstar but she didn’t get far?
Sly
Jethro Tull, Locomotive Breath
Sue
@Phyllis: You beat me to it!
But really, City of New Orleans.
New Yorker
“Folsom Prison Blues” is the greatest train song ever and it’s already been mentioned above.
I’m surprised no one has brought up “Downtown Train” by Tom Waits. Yes, the subway counts.
Ruckus
Why are there so many more good songs involving trains than other forms of travel?
Trains rides last longer than planes, they have rhythm and they have private rooms with beds.
Andy K
James Brown
Night Train
El Cid
If by miraculous surprise the Democrats keep the House, I will likely have to quit my job so as to concentrate on calling right wing talk radio and focus on laughing at them on air.
Tax Analyst
I think trains tend to evoke deeper imagery; the sounds, the visuals – particularly that of trains from prior eras, with the curling smoke rising from the engine – the forlorn, distant whistle, the time involved in getting from to your destination while idly peering out the windows at seemingly endless miles of plains until one finally gets a glimpse of distant majestic mountains or a shimmering ocean on the horizon. These things suggest that there is time available for reflection – or in some cases, anticipation. With airplanes things are upon you and then behind you in an instant. With buses the time you might spend reflecting is more often spent wishing you weren’t on a stinking bus, with cars you are too busy driving, so your thoughts are more mixed. And if you are walking, well, if you are walking you are probably wishing you were somehow able to avail yourself of some…ANY of the above alternative modes of transport…because your damned feet hurt and you ain’t getting where you want to go any time soon.
But that’s all just my opinion, of course…
DougJ
@New Yorker:
Not even my favorite Tom Waits song that mentions trains. I like “Blind Love” and “Cold Water”.
Folsom has to be up there, I agree. I remember the first time I ever heard it — he did it on David Letterman — hearing “and I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die”, and getting a tingle up my spine or leg or wherever they go.
electricgrendel
“You Never Even Call Me By My Name” by David Allan Coe.
(recitation)
Well, a good friend of mine named Steve Goodman wrote that song and he told me it was the perfect country and western song. I wrote him back a letter and told him it was not the perfect country and western song because he hadn’t said anything at all about Mama.
Or trains.
Or trucks.
Or prison.
Or gettin’ drunk!
Well he sat down and he wrote another verse to the song and after reading it I realized that my friend had written the perfect country and wester song. And I felt obliged to include it on this album. The last verse goes like this here:
Well, I was drunk the day my mom got out prison.
And I went to pick her up in the rain
But before I could get to the station in my pickup truck
She got run over by a damned old train!
S. cerevisiae
I like Train, Train by Blackfoot even if Ricky Medlock has gone wingnut.
And I also love Crazy Train – I was lucky enough to see Randy Rhodes two months before he died. An amazing guitarist.
EdTheRed
Draw Your Brakes by Scotty (from The Harder they Come) is a good one – bonus points for showing up as the title sample for a section of B-Boy Bouillabaisse (EDIT: it’s the “Stop that train, I wanna get off” sample)…and of course, the Dead loved trains:
Casey Jones (“Driving that train, high on cocaine…”)
Ballad of Casey Jones (“A mighty man, but he’s dead and gone.” Yeah, cocaine is a hell of a drug.)
Monkey and the Engineer
I Know You Rider (“I wish I was a headlight, on a northbound train…”)
Terrapin Station (“But the train’s put it’s brakes on, and the whistle is screaming…”)
Tons of Steel
Caution (Do Not Stop on Tracks)
He’s Gone (“Like a steam locomotive, rolling down the track…”)
New Potato Caboose
Um…I should probably stop typing for awhile now. Also, too, Yes on 19.
DougJ
@Andy K:
That’s good too.
I also loved the Martin Amis book, even though I don’t like Martin Amis that much, and not just because of the insanely hostile Updike review.
debit
Dude, am I the only one who thought of The Ballad of John Henry? Now I feel old.
Phlip
Baby Got Going by Liz Phair
Sue
Will I get thrown out if I mention Last Train to Clarksville?
Hah, you know it’s going to be in your head the rest of the day.
I refuse to apologize!
baldheadeddork
Folsom Prison Blues, as already mentioned.
But what about Steve Goodman’s “You Never Even Called Me By My Name” True, it only has one reference to trains, but it works mama, prison and death into the same line.
debit
@Sue: I forgive you, but only because I quoted lyrics from Feelings earlier.
licensed to kill time
@DougJ: “Fuckin’ tingles, how do they work?!”
Edtench
Do you mean the original Robert Johnson “Love in Vain” or the Rolling Stones version? Both are good but I prefer Johnson’s.
I also like the song “Casey Jones Union Scab,” meaning the old union version not the newer Greatful Dead version.
I listened to the Who’s 5:15 on the way to work. Great jams.
Davis X. Machina
The Orange Blossom Special and the Wabash Cannonball were, IIRC, actual trains as well as musical ones.
daveX99
Train song: Smokestack Lightning… Yardbirds have a great version, of course, but I’m sure there are a ton of different versions.
Tax Analyst
@jinxtigr:
hehe…how evah clevah of you.
neill
and daddy wont you take me back to Muhlenberg county,
down by the Green river,
where Paradise lay…
well i’m sorry my son,
but yer too late in askin’ …
Mr. Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away.
also (too) “useless desires” and its rusty train.
Innocent Bystander
Waiting For a Train ( Jorma Koukonen’s version on Blue Country Heart)
Jack Straw (Dead)
Acheson, Topeka, and the Santa Fe (Jack Teagraden version)
stuckinred
@Linda Featheringill: Uh Arrowsmith is totally a cover.
Johnny Burnette
Joe Bauers
Just got back from doing my civic duty. Of course, voting Dem in Indiana, and specifically in the fourth district, is the very definition of pissing into the wind. Even under the best of circumstances, which this ain’t. But I did it.
God protect us from the consequences of what our idiot fellow Americans are about to do to us.
xian
i <3 @cleek:
great choices! i’d add
Blood on the Coal (the Folksmen)
New Yorker
@EdTheRed:
Great one. I still have never figured out what he’s saying at the beginning: “forward and fayaka, manaki and then go saka”???
stuckinred
Hellbound Train Savoy Brown
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
I’m joining the City of New Orleans chorus, and I also have a soft spot for The Metro by Berlin.
cleek
Hendrix : Hear My Train a Comin
i think this kills everything else listed here, or that could be listed here, ever.
Eric S.
@DougJ: I like all those. Since I was a kid I’ve always liked Chuck Berry’s “County Line.”
Andy K
@Sue:
Cool by me. It might even keep The Stampeders’ Sweet City Woman (for who-knows-what reason, the default song in my head) from popping up when I’m at work.
Or not.
stuckinred
Chicken Train Ozark Mountain Daredevils
you can’t get on
you can’t get off
Shalimar
If Love Was A Train by Michelle Shocked
But it isn’t really a song about trains, exactly.
Matt T.
“Wreck of the Old ’97”, particularly Johnny Cash’s live version from the San Quentin album. “City Of New Orleans” has been mentioned and I’ve always favored Willie Nelson’s version. I played in a country covers band a few years ago, and no matter where we played – either for a frat party or for older folks – that song always knocked ’em out.
Scott Miller (formerly of the V-Roys) has a good tune called “The Amtrak Crescent”, and Todd Snider has a lovely number called “Play A Train Song”.
Back before he was a Drive-By Trucker, Patterson Hood (along with Mike Cooley) was in a band called Adam’s House Cat that won some sort of unsigned band prize. Part of the prize was a special concert at the venue of the band’s choice in front of some industry bigwigs. Way Patterson tells it, his vision was that train songs were the next big thing, so for the show he wrote an album’s worth of train songs.
On the day of the big show, there was a big tornado that ripped up Muscle Shoals. The result was almost nobody came to the big gig and the only thing the music industry folks wanted to know was “What was with all the train songs?” Years later, Patterson used that experience and imagery for the song “Tornadoes”, which has the line “it sounded like a train”. It’s on The Dirty South.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
I forgot to add Engine Driver by the Decemberists.
Oh, and ‘pass the paper bag that holds the bottle’…
we’ll all need it with this election.
Bulworth
@El Cid: Well, the Republican model, in 1993-1994 and now 2009-2010, is to act like the election before meant nothing and after the election to immediately start yelling and obstructing. It’s worked twice for them. I think it’s a useful model to follow.
Beauzeaux
“Trains vs Planes” by Human Hands.
Oh, and “Shuffle Off to Buffalo.” Best version is probably by the Boswell Sisters.
RedKitten
@DougJ:
Heh — no, more the “I’d rather be in his world, than be without him in mine.” Why else do you think I’m living in a tiny fishing village?
It sure as hell isn’t for the shopping.
Modulo Myself
Tom Waits — Train Song.
DougJ, if you ever get the chance to try another hipster-ish place in the E. Village, try Jimmys 43.
EdTheRed
@New Yorker:
I know the answer is out there, but it’s always one toke away…
Davis X. Machina
My Baby Thinks He’s a Train… and Albert Lee twenty years after Ten Years After.
stuckinred
Johnny Cash & Friends – Life’s Railway To Heaven
BTD
@Steve:
Obama not better than Clinton on taxes.
That was a big effing deal.
I hope he sticks to his guns on the issue.
If Obama does that, then his first 2 years will be a huge success imo.
Que Sera Sera
Train Running Low on Soul Coal, from XTC’s The Big Express.
MaryRC
I share the love for “City of New Orleans”.
Some old favorites from my childhood: ” Orange Blossom Special”, “The Ballad of Casey Jones”, “Rock Island Line”, “The Wabash Cannonball”.
And “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” for the first line alone.
geg6
@Sue:
Hells no! Love me some Monkees (and Boyce and Hart)!
Take the last train to Clarksville,
And I’ll meet you at the station.
You can be be there by four thirty,
‘Cause I made your reservation.
Don’t be slow, oh, no, no, no!
Oh, no, no, no!
‘Cause I’m leavin’ in the morning
And I must see you again
We’ll have one more night together
‘Til the morning brings my train.
And I must go, oh, no, no, no!
Oh, no, no, no!
And I don’t know if I’m ever coming home.
Take the last train to Clarksville.
I’ll be waiting at the station.
We’ll have time for coffee flavored kisses
And a bit of conversation.
Oh… Oh, no, no, no!
Oh, no, no, no!
Take the last train to Clarksville,
Now I must hang up the phone.
I can’t hear you in this noisy
Railroad station all alone.
I’m feelin’ low. Oh, no, no, no!
Oh, no, no, no!
And I don’t know if I’m ever coming home.
Take the last train to Clarksville,
Take the last train to Clarksville,
[repeat and fade]
youtube.com/watch?v=ScXXaBu1Ing
Sean
Freight train, freight train, going so fast
Freight train, freight train, going so fast
Please don’t tell what train I’m on
So they won’t know where I’m gone.
Libba Cotten, 1905
Punchy
Sorry Doug, but the “Applebee’s salad bar” schtick is stale and stupid. Can you please fixate on some new (that doesn’t involve “fee-fees” and Sully)?
Grassyass.
P
jacy
“Last Train Home” by David Mead
But now you’re fast asleep
And I am so alone
But we’re together on the last train
All the towns repeating
Two more stops to go
We’re together on the last train home
stogoe
No train songs, but did the awfulness of Armageddon finally destroy the song “Leaving on a Jet Plane”?
Also, such as, I was excited to vote for all my Democratic candidates except my drooling idiot congresspossum. And I still bubbled him in, the bastidge.
morzer
Well, if you want songs about trains, I’ll come whistling down your track…. You don’t even need a shovel for the coal just to get me started…
youtube.com/watch?v=9xyt9gUlrec
stuckinred
Hugh Masekela Stimela (Coal Train)
do yourself a favor and listen to him make train sounds!
Davis X. Machina
Wrong Lee — getting pre-senile… carotids + cheeseburgers + anno domini.
cleek
Do The Locomotion!
MikeJ
White Train by The dBs
Last Train to Clarksville The Monkees
Last Train to Regretsville by bunnygrunt
Train Kept a Rollin’ (Big Star version)
Ghost Train by Elvis Costello & The Attractions
Drug Train by The Cramps
Jumping Someone Else’s Train by Cure
Death of a Train by Daniel Lanois
Wagon Train by Difford & Tillbrook
Train Round the Bend by The Soft Boys or The Velvet Underground
Last Train by Travis
Train From Terminal Boredom by Those Bastard Souls
Runaway Train
MTrain by Pylon
Memphis Train Blues by REM
Train Song by Tom Waits
Downtown Train by Tom Waits
About 30 more pop up when I type train into the iTunes find box.
Tax Analyst
Well, to go WAY back you could always go with “Chilly Winds” by the Kingston Trio. BTW – I think the Dead kind of stole the lyric from the KT, which originally went, “Wish I was a headlight/on a Westbound train/I’d shine my light on/cool Colorado range/Out where them chilly winds don’t blow/Out where them chilly winds don’t blow”.
Yeah, it’s sort of a mournful song, but it played true if you listened to it.
And of course, after leaving the Kingston Trio John Stewart eventually wrote quite a few songs with train references. I always liked “Shackles and Chains”, but I also have quite a fondness for his folkie-psychedelic “Lincoln’s Train” off his first solo album, “Signals Thru The Glass”. It was about the “in the moment” reactions of everyday people who were standing by the railroad tracks to witness and pay homage to the fallen President as the train carrying his body travelled down the tracks taking him “home” for the last time.
NickM
I Often Dream of Trains is my favorite of very many.
Dems were out in force today at my polling place in the People’s republic of NoVa.
Matt T.
Also, “Take The ‘A’ Train” by Duke Ellington.
“My Baby Thinks (S)He’s A Train” by Asleep At The Wheel and/or Rosanne Cash
“Waiting For A Train” by Jimmie Rodgers
And some others I’ll probably think of as the day wears on.
cintibud
A ton of good train songs already mentioned, just let me add two more:
Downbound Train – Springsteen – too fitting these days
Everybody loves a train – Los Lobos – funky train rhythm
frazamatazzle
Prolly not what you’re looking for thanks to the whole holocaust angle, but “Different Trains” by Steve Reich ought to be on a train song list.
Violet
Train song for Teabaggers: “Train, Train, Train…Train of Fools.”
morzer
@cleek:
Just for you, Cleek.. and may God have mercy on your soul!
youtube.com/watch?v=TkN4J2l1UaA
scandi
Midnight Train to Georgia. I think it’s the escape fantasy. We’re not crazy about things as they are, but get on a train (plane, car) and you can go off to somewhere better.
PonB
“Trains” by Porcupine Tree. Try it, you’ll like it…
– PonB
birthmarker
Planes–Late for the Sky, Jackson Browne
Trains–You Never Even Called Me By My Name, David Allan Coe
Automobiles–Ford Econoline, Nanci Griffith
stuckinred
Cassandra Wilson Last Train To Clarksville
New Yorker
It’s interesting how many of these songs are old blues and country pieces (I just finished listening to “Ridin’ That Midnight Train” by Ralph Stanley). I guess that’s because rock and roll is a product of the automobile era. I’m sure we can find a ton of rock songs about one’s car.
monkeyboy
There are lots of songs about trains, plains, and automobiles (and trucks).
But what about “ocean liners”? I immediately thought of “Paul Whiteman” and a google search of these two terms turns up Raymond Scott’s Quintette “Reckless Night on Board an Ocean Liner” (april 1937).
Not that I have ever heard it. Nor can I recall any other songs about ocean liners.
Tax Analyst
@stuckinred:
Heh…LOVED the OMD. “Chicken Train” certainly was a trip, wasn’t it?
OH, and their song, “Walkin’ Down The Road” voicing the fervent wish that, “I shore do hope that choo-choo train runs on time”, since I believe it was eventually gonna carry the fellow back to his mama in that “big, brass bed”.
MikeJ
Groovy Train by the Farm
Outside The Trains Don’t Run On Time by Gang of Four
Last Train to Transcentral by The KLF
Last of the Steam Powered Trains by The Kinks
The Train Part II (Sir Lucious Left Foot Save The Day) [Ft. Sam Chris] by Big Boi
Garm
@DougJ:
I don’t know if there are any truly great car songs. I’m sitting here thinking about songs that involve cars but little that could be considered iconic comes to mind.
Songs that I like that mention cars in some way:
“White Lexus” – Mike Doughty
“Rapid Roy” – Jim Croce
“Satan Is My Motor” and “Going The Distance” – Cake
and I suppose “Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman deserves mention tho’ I’m ambivalent about that song.
Peter VE
Mystery Train – Elvis Presley. I think Jon Stewart should have got Yusef Islam and Ozzy to join together in singing Mystery Train.
Downtown Train – Tom Waits
Davis X. Machina
@morzer:
I am ordinarily a Hugo-Black-style First Amendment absolutist, but that Kylie Minogue video has me challenging some previously long-held convictions about prior restraint.
Paris
Train song:
Driver 8 by REM
or the version they played when they were in high school.
morzer
@Davis X. Machina:
Hey, I am just the messenger for the Cleek and Kylie Jihad.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@MikeJ:
I totally forgot about KLF. I love that song!
stuckinred
I’m Movin On
Hank Snow
Ailuridae
Like many others I am a big fan of Steve Goodman’s City or New Orleans. As a huge country fan I have a problem reconciling the over-glorified karaoke singers like George Strait that receive the majority of the fame and accolades while the actual talent works in relative obscurity.
As such City Of New Orleans as sung by its author
That version is off the excellent Easter Tapes album.
Dennis SGMM
“Panama Limited” by Tom Rush.
Yahoo News is featuring a piece on the election headed with:
“Bold Republicans bidding for control in Congress”
Ah, yes, those Bold Republicans: ties flapping boldly in the breeze as they boldly set out to bring government to a standstill. If pushing ideas that were already past their sell-by date in the Eighties isn’t bold then I’m not an astronaut.
jinxtigr
@Tax Analyst:
Yup. Only mention of it and it’s the source for the thread title.
Mind you, I feel like a chump for saying that with all the millions of great songs being cited in the actual thread :)
Andy K
Okay, I’ve gotta go just a tad bit off topic…
Just in case Virg Bernero (MI governor’s race) and Pat Miles (MI 3) pull off victories, causing me to spontaneously combust and have a heart attack simultaneously, a last word at BJ to all the lovely progressive women (and DougJ and General Stuck who crack my ass up consistently more than anyone on the internets):
The Zombies
I Love You
:Perhaps someday we shall meet again on distant shores….
MikeJ
Other forms of transport:
Get out of that Spaceship and Fight Like a Man – The Grifters
Unfunky UFO – Parliament
Silver Rocket – Sonic Youth
Bubblegum Tate
Another favorite song about trains: “The Train Song” by Romanowski. Total feel-good music.
EdTheRed
@monkeyboy:
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Fred Locks!
Dis one, a Rastaman anthem,
Me haffi lik it back again.
Dis song, a Rastaman anthem,
Go run along and tell your friend.
Seven miles of Black Star Liners coming in the harbour.
Yeah, seven miles of Black Star Liners coming in the harbour.
I can see them coming.
I can see I dreams running.
I can hear the Elders saying,
These are the days for which we’ve been praying.
Seven miles of Black Star Liners coming in the harbour.
Yeah, seven miles of Black Star Liners coming in the harbour.
It’s repatriation,
A Black liberation.
Yes, the time has come:
Black Man, we’re going home!
Seven miles of Black Star Liners coming in the harbour.
Yeah, seven miles of Black Star Liners coming in the harbour.
Dis song, a Rastaman anthem,
We haffi lik it back again.
Dis one, a Rastaman anthem,
Go run along and tell your friend.
Coz seven miles of Black Star Liners coming in the harbour.
Yeah, seven miles of Black Star Liners coming in the harbour.
Marcus Garvey told us
That freedom is a must.
He told us that the Black Star Liners
Are coming one day for us.
Seven miles of Black Star Liners coming in the harbour.
Seven miles of Black Star Liners coming in the harbour.
..Seven miles of Black Star Liners,
Seven miles of Black Star Liners,
Seven miles of Black Star Liners
Coming, coming, coming, coming
For I n I, for I n I, for I n I n I.
Yeah! For I n I n I.
For Natty Dreadlock, binghi Bongo Man
ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba standing
???????
I n I.
Yes, I n I.
Seven miles of Black Star Liners coming in the harbour.
Yeah, seven miles of Black Star Liners coming in the harbour.
Seven miles of Black Star Liners coming in the harbour.
Yeah, seven miles of Black Star Liners coming in the harbour.
I can see them coming.
I can see I dreams running.
I can hear the Elders saying,
These are the days for which we’ve been praying.
Seven miles of Black Star Liners coming in the harbour.
Yeah, seven miles of Black Star Liners coming in the harbour.
Yeah, seven miles of Black Star Liners,
Seven miles of Black Star Liners,
Seven miles of Black Star Liners
Coming, coming, coming, coming
Seven miles of Black Star Liners…..
Davis X. Machina
@Ailuridae:
Oh, what a world, and a book, lies inside that song! Of troop trains east and west, and migrants up from the Delta to the cities. What are we, now, if not the sons (and daughters) of Pullman porters, and the sons (and daughers) of engineers…
It’s like someone gave Walt Whitman a guitar.
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
@Steve: You know the more I think about this, the more I feel that a nation of sprinters hired a long-distance runner to lead it. That’s going to involve some adjustment on all sides.
Citizen_X
And y’all call this a political blog. Hmph.
Keeping up nostalgic
Want to own tomorrow
Discipline is his passion
Now is enough
Outside the trains don’t run on time
He believes it’s not coincidence
He thinks the blood will run them down
Hold it’s no castle
It’s once it’s white to run and fetch
Order his obsession order order
Discipline is his passion
Now the stench is done
Order his obsession
Now the stench is done
Outside the trains don’t run on time
He believes it’s not coincidence
He thinks the blood will run them down
Hold it’s no castle
It’s once it’s white to run and fetch
Order his obsession
The trains don’t run on time
The scoundrel discipline is his passion
Now stench is done
Outside the trains don’t run on time
stuckinred
Tom Rush
Drivin Wheel
Well I just came up on the midnight special how about that
Brachiator
Lots of great songs about travel, because that’s what’s people do. I suppose that almost all the songs about traveling on horseback or in carriages have fallen by the wayside. One day, songs about riding in the car with the radio on will be quaint antiquities.
In the meantime, here’s Chuck Berry, riding around in his automobile, cruising and playing the radio, with No Particular Place to Go
And another train song, Roger Miller’s King of the Road
A Man of Means by No Means
suzanne
Driver 8!
Napoleon
Am I the first to mention The Last Train to Clarksville?
Dennis SGMM
@Ailuridae:
Steve Goodman, Tim Buckley, miss them.
LT
I started a song long ago from the point of view of a train, saying, “No more songs about trains!”
stuckinred
@EdTheRed: The legend of the USS Titanic
Davis X. Machina
@Brachiator:
And, I hope, doctoral dissertations on just where on Route 128 that Stop and Shop was…..Radio on!
MikeJ
I would guess planes are probably the most underrepresented. The best of the songs that do mention them though is without a doubt, The Letter.
stuckinred
@Napoleon: nope
Matt in HB
100 Games of Solitaire by Concrete Blonde
youtube.com/watch?v=PDWg5yC-_j8
I got a bag all packed
I got a ticket for the train
Mexico to New Orleans and back again
I got a bottle of tequila baby who needs friends
I got a bottle of tequila baby who needs friends
I got a hundred miles of desert
got a head of fresh air
and I know 100 games of solitaire
Downpuppy
Jackies Train by Mary Gauthier has the best cow on the tracks, and of course the perfect train rhythm
suzanne
And for automobiles…..”Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” by Lucinda Williams, or “I’m In Love With My Car” by Mike Ness.
stuckinred
@MikeJ: Jet Plane, 500 MIles,
Country Joe, Untitled Protest
There’s an airplane song for you!
Jewish Steel
“It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry”
“Train In Vain” for favorite song without a train.
geg6
@Napoleon:
Not even close.
Tom Hilton
@licensed to kill time: This. No contest.
twiffer
space truckin’!
incidently, i have turned my 3yr old son into a deep purple fan. for this, i feel no shame.
Death Panel Truck
@Linda Featheringill: The Jeff Beck-era Yardbirds’ cover is the standard by which all other versions are judged.
Best train song (by freakin’ far): “Train To Nowhere,” by Savoy Brown, from Blue Matter, 1969. Chris Youlden had the best white-boy blues voice evah.
Sentient Puddle
@Paris:
Wow. That one was impressive, but for some reason, it feels incredibly disconcerting to me to see an insanely young Mike Mills. And a Michael Stipe with long curly hair.
Linda Featheringill
@debit:
A couple of days ago I heard a Blue Grass version of John Henry. It sounded OLD. Like a folk song [which it is]. Good version. Don’t know who did it.
Napoleon
@stuckinred:
I went back and looked. Figured I wouldn’t be the first to mention a song as cheesy as that one.
My vote is City of NO or The Farms’ Groovy Train.
stuckinred
@Death Panel Truck: Uh, maybe for some people but
“Johnny Burnette and the Rock and Roll Trio in 1956, numerous other versions have been recorded. The Trio’s version, considered a rockabilly classic, is an upbeat, high energy version of the original, with lead guitarist Paul Burlison playing what many consider to be the first introduction of the contemporary fuzz tone guitar sound.”
Dennis SGMM
@stuckinred:
Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I heard this song on an underground radio station back in the late Sixties and I hadn’t been able to find it since.
To explain, I’m deeply affected by some songs. Lamentably those songs are usually the ones that hurtled into obscurity after a couple of airplays on someone’s 500 Watt campus FM station.
chopper
train in vain
folsom prison blues
take the A train
the sicilain train blues
Matt in HB
@Paris:
OMG that Driver 8 video made my day.
stuckinred
@Napoleon: Yea but check out Cassandra Wilson’s interpretation. She is an insanely wondeful jazz vocalist who got some grief from purists for covering songs like this and Don’t Let it Bring You Down.
Bokonon
In addition to the others, I nominate Vashti Bunyan’s “Train Song.” If you aren’t familiar with it … check it out. Gorgeous, ethereal, haunting 1960’s English folk revival tune about romantic longing.
“Traveling north, traveling north to find you
Train wheels beating, the wind in my eyes
Don’t even know what I’ll see when I find you
Call out your name love … don’t be surprised
It’s so many miles and so long since I’ve met you
Don’t even know what I’ll find when I get to you
But suddenly now, I know where I belong
It’s many hundred miles and it won’t be long.”
chopper
also, turn around by they might be giants does have a train in it.
wes g
just throwing it out there:
Chemical Brothers – Star Guitar. amazing video!
youtube.com/watch?v=CBgf2ZxIDZk
almostaquantum
Born on a Train by the Magnetic Fields
The Light at the End of the Tunnel is a Train by Unwound
Mwangangi
Groove Line by Heatwave
Alex S.
Take the A train and Trans-Europe Express
chopper
also, into you like a train by the psychedelic furs.
Pee Wee
Train in Vain, the Clash
I Often Dream of Trains, Robin Hitchcock
Matt in HB
@Andy K:
+1 for the hardest working man in showbiz
stuckinred
@Dennis SGMM: Country Joe is a pretty powerful dude. He played at the 10th Anniversary of the Wall and seeing him up above the Wall with the 1st Cav color guard actually had me hoping we had made some progress in this country. . .but that was a long time ago.
Mako
What is your favorite song that involves trains? I would probably have to go with “Love In Vain”…
Too lazy to read all the comments so I’ll just assume – Why do you hate Steve Goodman?
Davis X. Machina
If ‘City of New Orleans’ is America, and the past, then Kraftwerk’s ‘Trans-Europa Express’, even though it’s thirty-some years old, is still Europe, and the future.
BGinCHI
You know who don’t write songs about trains? Europeans.
Why?
Because they have actual trains.
stuckinred
@Bokonon: Here’s the youtube of it
reminds me of Fairport Convention, very nice, thanks.
Dennis SGMM
@stuckinred:
Just to show you how old I am, I met Country Joe when he was living in the Fish House on (I believe it was) Sacramento Street in Berkeley. That was back in the late Sixties when I was hurrying to complete my useless Lit degree before being sucked up into the Draft.
Country Joe McDonald was one of the most level-headed people whom I ever met.
WereBear
Chambers Brothers: Uptown
I’m going uptown to Harlem
Gonna let my hair down in Harlem
If a taxi won’t take me, I’ll catch a train
I’ll go underground, I’ll get there just the same
stuckinred
@Dennis SGMM: Barry Melton, Chicken Hirsch. . .hell yes! I ETS’s in 69.
chris
Why are there so many train songs? Because for the first time in history people could just get up and go. So they did and they’re still singing about it.
Also, Roseanne Cash called J-Bone an asshat on twitter.
You go, girl!
youtube.com/watch?v=F-lGqPoSvO4&feature=related
Geoduck
Another vote for The Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe
Napoleon
@stuckinred:
In the last decade or so after I began buying things like the Beatles Anthology where you can really get a feel for how the bare bones of a song (lyrics and cord progression) can be made to sound so many different ways and stylistically completely different I have come to think anyone who criticizes someone for doing a song like that, other then purely on the merits of how it actually turns out, really doesn’t know what they are talking about.
Listen to all the rockabilly songs Nick Lowe put out. Elvis Costello turned one of them into one of the great power pop songs of all time, maybe as good as any power pop song from the Beatles. Just imagine Lowe’s catalog being played by, say, Weezer or Fountains of Wayne, and the whole catalog would come off completely different.
from oberlin
Can’t Stop a Train, The Derailers
It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry, Bob Dylan
Texas Eagle, Steve Earle with Del McCoury Band
ilike.myspacecdn.com/play#Steve+Earle:Texas+Eagle:196267:m22361389
trollhattan
@cintibud:
Also, too, by Los Lobos: “That Train Don’t Stop Here”
Wonderful song.
Mako
Okay I skimmed the comments, bunch of oldtimers mentioning Kingston Trio and random hipsters with their David Meade and Let Their Be Giants references, but seriously, why do you people hate Soul Train? Not into the stone gas? Racists.
Dennis SGMM
All right, no great car songs?
Bobby Troup, performing “Route 66” with a spare jazz background, c1964.
Calouste
Traintime by Cream (White Room mentions trains as well)
Trans Europa Express by Kraftwerk
trollhattan
@Napoleon:
Some of Lowe’s best rockabilly work was in evidence when producing Dave Edmunds’ albums. I was lucky enough to see Rockpile when they toured California. Great, great stuff.
slag
One might think that, after participating in the Rally to Restore Sanity, Huffpo would consider making their front page font a saner size/color. But nope. They went the other way with it. Crazy.
And yes, this election will likely be a train wreck. At this point, I only hope the train doesn’t get wrecked in my own backyard.
Comrade Kevin
Train in Vain was already mentioned, so here’s a few more:
Nighttime in the Switching Yard – Warren Zevon
Hot Rails to Hell – Blue Öyster Cult
Daily City Train – Rancid
Montysano
@Shalimar:
Seconded. “Short Sharp Shocked” is a great, great album, and contained another train song as well: Jean Ritchie’s “The L&N Don’t Stop Here Anymore”. This song has been covered many times, but Michelle’s version is the best.
DougJ
It’s also worth asking: why are there so many awful groups that name themselves after something train-related? Train, Trans-Siberian Orchestra. I can’t think of any others, but that’s enough.
Ash Can
For me, first place: City of New Orleans
Close second: Chattanooga Choo-Choo
Honorable mention: Last Train Home by Pat Metheny
And then there’s this little gem. :)
graeme
Drug Train by the Cramps! Yes on Prop 19!
4tehlulz
@DougJ: Grand Funk Railroad.
R-Jud
All of my favorites were mentioned except for “Train” by Goldfrapp. Sexxay.
Dennis SGMM
Best train lines in a movie:
Daddy? He ain’t our daddy.
Hell I ain’t. What’s this Wharvey? You’re McGills.
Not since you got hit by that train.
What? I wasn’t hit by a train.
– Mama says you was hit by a train. – Blooey! Nothin’ left.
Just a grease spot on the L & N.
Damn it, I wasn’t hit by any train!
Transcribed by ear from “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?”
General Stuck
While this polling number doesn’t necessarily translate to every district nationwide, and is likely fed by already very red states, the overall result answers the question of why dems lose big, IF IN FACT THEY DO.
The Gallup enthusiasm to vote for repubs this election breaks all records for midterms by a wide margin. Or, Obama and dems have pissed the wingnuts off in a big way. Not that liberals in the dem party are abnormally disappointed causing them to not vote.
Mako
zappinternet.com/video/QeQcLaxSow/www.adnstream.tv
beergoggles
@cleek: Seconded! Especially the Kylie concert version
Southern Beale
Breitbard just got canned.
So, there’s that. I’m avoiding all news coverage. I just can’t handle the farce any more.
Stan
Love like a train: youtube.com/watch?v=2cx2HU7rzWk
jrosen
Is a subway a train? If so, Take the A Train, for sure.
But I’m not in touch with a lot of the songs mentioned here. I took my first long train ride (coach, all night, from Detroit to Stockbridge MA) when I was 12. In 1952. Do the math.
I still enjoy trains. I took one from Paris to Caen just last June, and I’ve been on the bullet trains in Japan. You have leg room, you can actually take a nap, get something to eat on a
long trip, maybe even make an acquaintance, and the sound of the signal bells still has a poetic ring to me. In spite of Samuelson in WaPo, I’d love to see something like that here, especially now that flying in the US is has become only one step ahead above riding in a boxcar, and more crowded. (It’s different, and better, on Air France or Lufthansa.)
Dennis SGMM
The smell of cheap wine, cigarettes,
This place is always such a mess.
Sometimes I think I’d like a new fucking thread.
Brachiator
@Dennis SGMM:
Too Easy
Chuck Berry, with the greatest car lyric ever, “as I was motivating over the hill, I saw Maybelline in a Coupe de Ville” in Maybelline
And The Beach Boys, Little Deuce Coupe
Suscon
A Passage to Bangkok by Rush
Mako
youtube.com/watch?v=r7MiG2fe8lE
Ash Can
@Southern Beale: LOL! That was a quick stint. Breitbart’s going to be a one-man butthurt festival now, for months.
Legalize
Night Train – Guns N Roses
My Metro Card – LeTigre
Downtown Train by the great Mr. Tom Waits (“I had a job; I had a girl”)
Downbound Train – Springsteen
cleek
@MikeJ:
submarines.
besides the yellow one and the one Thomas Dolby was missing, i can’t think of any others.
renegademom3
@Shalimar:
if love was a train…….i believe i would ride me a slow one.
gbear
Well I looked (well, skimmed) over all the comments up to and including 202, but I haven’t seen this one yet:
Graveyard Train by Creedence Clearwater Revival (from Bayou Country). Sorry if I missed a previous posting.
KG
In no particular order:
Casey Jones
City of New Orleans
Train Kept a-Rollin’
Folsom Prison Blues
As for songs about cars: I always like the driving songs by the Beach Boys and Jan & Dean – things like Little Deuce Coup, Little Old Lady from Pasadena, Fun Fun Fun (til her daddy take the T-Bird away). Jim Croce’s Rapid Roy and Chuck Berry’s No Particular Place to Go are also fun. And I can’t turn the radio off if Cake’s The Distance is playing.
cleek
Old Crow Medicine Show : New Virgina Creeper
Chug-along, chug-along, like the old Virginia Creeper,
Down among the Mountain Laurel, I’m a gonna meetcha,
Baby stoke my fire,
So we can make it home tonight!
A come along, come along, come a right to tha station,
Slide me up yo ticket baby, climb up on my engine,
I’ll ride you in my sleeper on the New Virginia Creeper Tonight!
Matt in HB
The Who’s 5:15 is pretty solid as well. Not their best work, but the horns give it a different sound.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR5v4yyPV6Y&feature=related
Suscon
@Dennis SGMM:
How about Red Barchetta by Rush? or Highway Star by Deep Purple?
Legalize
Whoops, it was Springsteen who sang, “I had a job; I had a girl,” not Waits.
Train song lyric fail.
racrecir
Can’t You See – Marshall Tucker Band
I’m gonna buy me a ticket as far as I can,
I ain’t never comin’ back
I’m gonna take me that south-bound,
All the way to Georgia now,
‘Till the train it run out of track
MikeJ
@cleek: Good point, unless you lump them in with non-u-boats.
The Chills had an album, Submarine Bells, but it had a jellyfish on the cover. Don’t think it was about transport.
Gram Parsons first band was the International Submarine Band, but no song about subs that I know of.
Sing for the Submarine by REM from the Accelerate album.
bonus train song: Subway, Mary Lou Lord.
KRK
I’m sticking with City of New Orleans.
But I’m surprised no one has mentioned Midnight Special. No CCR fans?
And I love Johnny Cash’s cover of Down There by the Train.
Tax Analyst
@stuckinred:
You folks ever check out Country Joe’s 1970 album, “Hold On, It’s Coming”? It’s a great album. Have the vinyl and parts of it on various cassette tapes, but it took me many years to finally find a CD copy of it.
He also made an album called “War, War, War” (1971) and its just CJ, his twelve-string and various sounds he could make with pots and pans, clapping his hands and tapping his feet, and whatever else he might find to make appropriate sounds. He puts the WWI poems of Robert W. Service to music. These poems were mostly written during the time Service worked as an ambulance driver for the Canadian Red Cross during that bloody conflict. Its really quite a piece of work.
otmar
I haven’t seen two of my favorite train songs mentioned yet:
The Nits, “The Train” see youtube.com/watch?v=2IQSl7yU4LE (I saw that one live ages ago when the Nits came to Salzburg)
The first number from the soundtrack of Jim Jarmusch’s “Dead Man” (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Man_%28soundtrack%29)
cleek
Sheena Easton (My Baby Takes) The Morning Train (9 to 5) (!)
Throwin Stones
@EdTheRed:
more dead:
Mystery Train
Tennessee Jed
They Love Each Other
New Speedway Boogie
Me and Bobby McGee (Kristofferson)
Steve
“MTA” by the Kingston Trio.
jibeaux
City of New Orleans dittoed, and I find it makes a very nice lullaby.
Also too, “Georgia on a Fast Train”, although nsm about trains.
And finally, Murry Hammond of the Old 97s has a very nice album, heavy on train and train-feeling songs, called I Don’t Know Where I’m Going But I’m On My Way. Check it out.
jibeaux
@Legalize:
I had something going mister in this world!
Gordon's wife
@EdTheRed: Doesn’t Scotty want to get ON the train?
Polish the Guillotines
Um… because they go into tunnels. (It’s a penis metaphor. No, really.)
Rock & Roll Train, also too.
Bridge
“Train” by the Blake Babies.
jake the snake
“Hey Porter”
Either the Johnny Cash version. (He wrote it about coming home from the military.)
Or the Ry Cooder version (Sounds like an old bluesman going home to die).
Hey, porter, hey porter! Would you tell me the time
How much longer will it be ’til we cross that Mason-Dixon Line
At daylight will you tell that engineer to slow it down
Or better still, just stop the train ’cause I want to look around
Hey, porter, hey porter! What time did you say
How much longer will it be ’til I can see the light of day
When we hit Dixie will you tell that engineer to ring his bell
And ask everybody that ain’t asleep to stand right up and yell
Hey, porter, hey porter! It’s getting light outside
This old train is puffin’ smoke and I have to strain my eyes
But ask that engineer if he will blow his whistle please
‘Cause I smell frost on cotton leaves, and I feel that southern breeze
Hey, porter, hey porter! Please get my bags for me
I need nobody to tell me now that we’re in Tennessee
Go tell that engineer to make that lonesome whistle scream
We’re not so far from home so take it easy on the steam
Hey, porter, hey porter! Please open up the door
When they stop this train I’m gonna get off first ’cause I can’t wait no more
Tell that engineer I say, thanks a lot, and I didn’t mind the fare
I’m gonna set my feet on southern soil and breathe that southern air
Tom
I will second (or third or fourth?) The Train Kept A-Rollin by The Johnny Burnette Trio.
Definitely the most rockin’ train song.
300baud
God yes, another vote here for Folsom Prison Blues. In particular the version sung live at Folsom Prison.
DanF
The Rolling Stones’ version of “Love in Vain” was one of the reasons I learned to play guitar.
deadrody
You are absolutely right – Obama will not triangulate as quickly as Clinton – if AT ALL. And he will be that much more unpopular by the time 2012 rolls around.
If you disagree, name one piece of the Obama agenda that 1) the public wants, or 2) that has a snow ball’s chance in hell of coming out of Congress.
There is no such thing. Cap and Trade, Card Check, Amnesty, and any thought of the “Fairness Doctrine” are 100% dead in the water.
stuckinred
@Tax Analyst: Yup, I had them all. He’s my man!
Bokonon
Tom – whoa! Can’t believe someone else on this thread knows the Johnny Burnette version of “Train Kept a Rollin”.
Their version is just wicked!
Allen
Neil Young’s Southern Pacific, off of his Re-ac-tor album. A lot of Neil fans don’t like that album, but it’s one of my favorites. Regardless of one’s opinion of the rest of the album, Southern Pacific rocks!
chopper
@300baud:
hey now, the song that really mattered from that record was cocaine blues.
johnny cash, the original gansta. singin about shooting his girlfriend in the face and running away to mexico, and that was back in 68. rappers these days can eat his dick.
MattR
@deadrody: Why would you want the fairness doctrine reenacted? At best we will end up with 100 new Alan Colmes’s to provide the required balance while giving the right additional ammunition about liberals love of government interference.
stuckinred
@Bokonon: Some of us were around when it came out.
matoko_chan
Spill Canvas– Our Song
Draylon Hogg
Waterloo Sunset by The Kinks.
Down in the Tube Station at Midnight by The Jam
Container Drivers by The Fall (about shipping container truck drivers rather than trains but does mention them)
bartkid
Bartkid sez,
C’mon, after 240 comments, no one has come up with King Crimson’s “Doctor Diamond”?
Fer shame.
I am the driver of an underground train.
Lonely nights can’t bother me,
far away from wind and rain.
matoko_chan
Here is my alltime favorite emo song in Coles honor.
(not about trains)
Bloody November.
djinn
Hey! The best train song ever written, “The Wreck of the Old 97” hasn’t yet been mentioned, although a band named after it has.
Zuzu's Petals
Always liked Dylan’s “Slow Train Coming.”
Fond memories of musician playing/singing “City of New Orleans” in the viewing car as we rode the Southwest Chief through the desert outside Santa Fe.
Right now I’m riding Amtrak back to Sacto after a day in Berkeley. Gorgeous day, wonderful scenery, easy trip. Can’t wait ’till they have wi-fi so I don’t have to do everything via iPhone (yeah, life is hard).
frosty
@Davis X. Machina: My favorite also, and it works for both genders:
Asleep at the Wheel: “She’s just like a train, always giving some bum a ride.”
Roseanne Cash: “He’s just like a train, always giving some tramp a ride.”
Mako
@stuckinred:
You sound old.
@KRK:
Another example of the unknowing whiteness of this blog. Fogerty works for world changing songs visa veee Proud Mary, but Midnight Special is owned by Terry and McGee. Always has been.
youtube.com/watch?v=-TVjsjqGMf0
EIGRP
For those with kids: Buckwheat Zydeco: Choo Choo Boogalo. It’s a whole CD, with maybe 4 songs about trains.
Eric
EIGRP
Oh, and the Erie Canal song (…16 miles on the Erie Canal. Low bridge, everybody down…) for those in upstate NY
Eric
frosty
@Garm: No great car songs?
Start with “Maybelline” by Chuck Berry, seque to the Beach Boys and Jan’n’Dean and finish up with “Born to Run” and “Thunder Road” by the Boss.
Kitty_Sanchez
Not really my favorite, but it always makes me giggle when I hear it.
Train of Consequences – Megadeth
Some of the lyrics:
“As for me I hocked my brains
Packed my bags and headed west
I hocked my brains —
Oooh, headed west!
When riding in the car together, my husband and I have used the phrase “hock your brains” in place of “head west” or “go west” for years. Then we giggle. We’re dorks.
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
@stuckinred: I second this one – wondered whether anyone else had heard that. I also like Cassandra Wilson’s cover of “Last Train to Clarksville” just gives it a weight for me that isn’t in the original.
Bill Murray
Curly’s Train by The Connells
From a Late Night Train by The Blue Nile
Some of my Best Friends are Trains by The Waterboys
49 Tons by Fred Eaglesmith
Day We Caught the Train by Ocena Colour Scene
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
I almost forgot Burning Spear’s “We are Going.”
Josh
Janis Ian: This Train Still Runs
Kris Delmhorst: You’re No Train
Willie McTell: “Travelin’ Blues”
Josh White: “No. 12 Train”
Alan Smithee
Boxcars – Joe Ely
“Now if you ever heard the whistle on a fast freight train
Beatin’ out a beautiful tune
If you ever seen the cold blue railroad tracks
Shinin’ by the light of the moon
If you ever heard a locomotive shake the ground
I know you don’t have to be told
Why I’m going down to the railroad tracks
To watch them lonesome boxcars roll…”
And for good measure: the classic truck song – White Freight Liner Blues by Townes van Zandt.
polyorchnid octopunch
Gonna give some plane love here: Chilliwack, Fly at Night and of course Joni Mitchell: Both Side Now not to mention This Flight Tonight, though I’ve always been partial to the Nazareth version.
poicephalus
Mike really ought to get his own blog.
Oh, yeah. Right.
C
Jason
Really, no Interstate Love Song?
Leavin’ on a southern train
Only yesterday
You lied
Promises of what I seem to be
Only watch the time
Go by
All of these things you said to me
Mako
“Train’s hit single “Drops of Jupiter” was the alleged cause of the ugly Christmas Day fight between actor Charlie Sheen and wife Brooke Mueller, according to Us Magazine”
tinyurl.com/27sm3lz
Bob In Pacifica
Night Rally, E. Costello. Don’t think he mentions trains but the implication are the trains going to Auschwitz. Sort of like Amerika tonight.
slateman
Southern Railroad Blues
Railroad Days
both by Norman Blake
Mike
Train song: One Toke Over the Line – Brewer & Shipley
LanceThruster
Re: trains – they’ve been around longer, particularly when singer/songwriters could pay tribute to the romance of the rails as a traveling minstrel. It made you worldy in a “Leaving on a Jet Plane”/”How You Gonna Keep Them Down on the Farm” sort of way. You were less provincial by leaving your burg and making it to a population center large enough where everyone didn’t need to know your business.
Wabash Cannonball
Orange Blossom Special
Silver Train
Rock Island Line
Big Rock Candy Mountain
Big Rock Candy Mountain
On a summer day in the month of May a burly bum came hiking
Down a shady lane through the sugar cane, he was looking for his liking.
As he roamed along he sang a song of the land of milk and honey
Where a bum can stay for many a day, and he won’t need any money
Oh the buzzin’ of the bees in the cigarette trees near the soda water fountain,
At the lemonade springs where the bluebird sings on the Big Rock Candy Mountains
There’s a lake of gin we can both jump in, and the handouts grow on bushes
In the new-mown hay we can sleep all day, and the bars all have free lunches
Where the mail train stops and there ain’t no cops, and the folks are tender-hearted
Where you never change your socks and you never throw rocks,
And your hair is never parted
Oh the buzzin’ of the bees in the cigarette trees near the soda water fountain,
At the lemonade springs where the bluebird sings on the Big Rock Candy Mountains
Oh, a farmer and his son, they were on the run, to the hay field they were bounding
Said the bum to the son, “Why don’t you come to the big rock candy mountains?”
So the very next day they hiked away, the mileposts they were counting
But they never arrived at the lemonade tide, on the Big Rock Candy Mountains
Oh the buzzin’ of the bees in the cigarette trees near the soda water fountain,
At the lemonade springs where the bluebird sings on the Big Rock Candy Mountains
One evening as the sun went down and the jungle fires were burning,
Down the track came a hobo hiking, and he said “Boys, I’m not turning.”
“I’m heading for a land that’s far away beside the crystal fountains;”
“So come with me, we’ll go and see the Big Rock Candy Mountains.”
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, there’s a land that’s fair and bright,
The handouts grow on bushes and you sleep out every night
Where the boxcars all are empty and the sun shines every day
On the birds and the bees and the cigarete trees,
The lemonade springs where the bluebird sings
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, all the cops have wooden legs
And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth and the hens lay soft-boiled eggs
The farmer’s trees are full of fruit and the barns are full of hay
Oh I’m bound to go where there ain’t no snow
Where the rain don’t fall, the wind don’t blow
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, you never change your socks
And little streams of alcohol come a-trickling down the rocks
The brakemen have to tip their hats and the railroad bulls are blind
There’s a lake of stew and of whiskey too
And you can paddle all around ’em in a big canoe
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains the jails are made of tin,
And you can walk right out again as soon as you are in
There ain’t no short-handled shovels, no axes, saws or picks,
I’m a-goin’ to stay where you sleep all day
Where they hung the jerk that invented work
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
I’ll see you all this comin’ fall in the Big Rock Candy Mountains!