I’m glad you said that or I would have had to have myself committed. When I got out of basic training, I rode a train for the first time from San Antonio TX to Montgomery AL. Late in the night I woke up because we had slowed down. I peeked out the window, and there she was, The City of New Orleans just pulling out going the other direction. The song was a favorite. I wanted to change trains right there, even though I had no idea where I was or where it might be going.
Y’know, I never even thought of the relationship until after you brought it up. I love Mr. Goodman’s music, but I usually think of the artists that cover his songs than the originals, just because the covers usually have more success.
Some men they like to ride that train
I like it better when the train ride me
That way I can take my baby’s love from sea to sea…
–**RailRoad Steel ** by the Georgia Satelites
You mean Alice’s Restaurant never made the top 40? Just askin’
Nope, the album version was never edited down to a single to be released to radio. In 1969, Arlo cut another record called “Alice’s Rock & Roll Restaurant”, which is basically 4 1/2 minutes of repeating the chorus in a rocked-up arrangement (it sucks), and it died at #87.
Gordon Lightfoot did a few.
The Canadian Rail Road Trilogy
“There was a time in this fair land when the rail road did not run. When the wild majestic mountains stood alone against the sun. Long before the white man and long before the wheel. When the green dark forest was to silent to be real.
Well, we looked in the future, and what did we see. We saw an iron road runnin’ from the sea to the sea…We are the navies [sub](pronounced nahvies)[/sub] who work upon the rail road. Swingin’ our hammers in the bright blazin’ sun. Layin’ down track, and buildin’ the bridges, bendin’ our backs 'til the railway is done.”
Big Steel Rails (I think)
" …She sent me a railway ticket, to take me to her loving arms, and the big steel rails goin’a carry me home to the one I love…I went in town, for one last round, and I gambled my ticket away, and the big steel rails won’t carry me home to the one I love."
Early Morning Rain
“… You can’t jump a jet plane, like you can a freight train…”
There was one I vaguely remember from the '70s
"I’m a train, I’m a train, I’m a chika-train. chika-train chika-train… " No idea what the name or artist was…
Lenny Welch and others did * I’m so Lonesome I Could Cry*
I don’t remember the words to that exactly.
I’ve rode The City of New Orleans, some years back, at Christmas, going from Batesville, MS, to NOLA to see family. Most of the passengers were from Chicago, and half the passengers got off at Jackson, MSPI. I really loved the ride, perched up on the bubble window up-top car, getting to see everyone’s backyards, loved to see that little kids still wave hello at the passing trains, and, the approach to NOLA so different than on the road; gliding through the swamps, egrets and herons flapping out of the way.
Love the OP song, but my favorite train song, knowing many, blues and country, is this one:
Train Of Life, by Roger Miller, incredible version by Merle Haggard
I sit alone at my table and watch all the others have fun
And I’m tired of sittin’ on the side of track a watchin’ the mainline run
I’m tired of havin’ no future just livin’ on things that I’ve done
And I’m tired of sittin’ on the side of track a watchin’ the mainline run
Train train don’t leave me oh train of life
I got no one to call me their darling to hug me and call me their hon
And I’m tired of sittin’ on the side of track just a watchin’ the mainline run
I’m tired of havin’ no future…
Train train don’t leave me oh train of life
I don’t know why this hasn’t been redone by a modern country group; it’s a hauntingly beautiful song.
Damn! Sgt Schwartz beat me to the David Allen Coe referance and Siege beat me to Me and Bobby McGee and one of my favorite alltime songs Train, Train by Blackfoot is already here!
At least I picked up something from the Steve Goodman info. I love the Coe song but never made the connection.
"Fighting ignorance…" for yet another day.
Oh, Oh! Train Kept A Running by Aerosmith is another favorite. That one and Blackfoot’s have gotten me speeding tickets in the past.
Oh and Aqua Lung’s Locomotive Breath
I forgot a song by a favorite artist, Stan Rogers. The song’s called The Guysborough Line and you can find the lyrics here along with a discussion about how the song came about. Technically, though, it’s about a rail line which wasn’t built. It should still qualify, though. Here’s the chorus:
And I ride for all time, on the Guysborough line,
And I grow by the North Country rain,
And the North Shore’s begun, the man I’ve become,
In rags, on the Guysborough train
I just came in to mention The Orange Blossom Special, My Baby Thinks He’s a Train, Choo-choo Ch-Boogie, and of course, The Gambler.
That’s a Glenn Miller standard. Not sure if he wrote it, but he did it best, anyway.
The Whiffenpuff Song
Someone’s in the Kitchen with Dinah aka I’ve Been Working on the Railroad
scads more, I’m sure.
ABBA:
Another Town, Another Train
Nina-Pretty-Ballerina (Everyday in the morning on her way to the office you can see her as she catches the train)
The Day Before You Came (My train I’m certain left the station just when it was due)
The entire cast CD of “Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Starlight Express,” it being a musical about trains.
It’s not really a train song, but there’s Desperados Waiting for a Train by Jerry Jeff Walker. Great guitar riff at the end that sounds like a train…
Great Memories, **picunurse **, I had forgotten “Amid the shuffling madness/Stands the locomative breath…And the train it won’t stop running though it could slow down.”
And another good one Dolores Reborn, because once you get back to the basics of love, you need JJl train songs.
I’m embarassed to add this, but…
My baby takes the morning train
He works from nine to five and then
He takes another home again…
Sheana Easton
One toke over the line,
sweet Jesus,
One toke over the line,
Waiting for the train…
Lynyrd Skynyrd , Tuesday’s gone with the wind…
and
and speaking of trains, at work I just got “promoted” from conductor trainee to just conductor the other day. Look out world.
Last Train to Clarksville was The Monkees first hit:
Driver 8 by REM
I love Canadian Railroad Trilogy. Gordo is SO underrated as a writer/performer.
Saw Arlo do this song a few years ago at Schuba’s in Chicago. It was one of those tingly-skin moments for me…my mother taught me to ply guitar to that song.
There has to be something by Guthrie pater , no?
-Cem
I wish I was a headlight, on a north bound train;
I wish I was a headlight, on a north bound train;
I’d shine my light through cool colorado rain.
~~From the Grateful Dead’s take on the traditional I Know You Rider