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Train Songs


DB Cooper

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In April I'm traveling by rail from Michigan to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to visit my son. I'm taking along my little Washburn Rover to play quietly during my 35 hour train ride.

 

Been thinking about all the train songs out there, and thought I'd try to come up with a list. Help me!

 

Please list the song title, artist, and if need be, the railroad connection (lyric, etc.)

 

I'll start:

 

Folsom Prison Blues - Johnny Cash ("I hear that train a comin' - it's rollin' round the bend...")

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Princess of the Night - Saxon "She used to be an iron horse 20 years ago...used to bring the mail to me through the ice and snow...I sat alone and watched her steaming through the night, 90 tons of thunder lighting up the sky"

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Blackfoot- "Train, Train"

 

Waylon Jennings- "Luchenbach Texas" - ".... Hank Williams pain songs, and Newbury's train songs...."

 

Grand Funk Railroad/ Little Eva- "Locomotion"

 

Soggy Bottom Boys- "Man of Constant Sorrow"- "...For I'm bound to ride that northern railroad, Perhaps I'll die upon this train. (Perhaps he'll die upon this train.)"

 

Jethro Tull- "Locomotive Breath"

 

Glenn Miller- "Chattanooga Choo Choo"

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"City of New Orleans" - Arlo Guthrie

 

"Canadian Railroad Trilogy" - Gordon Lightfoot..

 

"Casey Jones" - Dead (driving that train high on cocaine...)

 

"Southbound Train" - C.S&N

 

"Midnight Special" - CCR

 

"Gilbert Street" - Swee Thursday

 

You may end up on one of the old Sante Fe Chief trains (southwest chief)

. So..

 

"Atchison, Topeka & Sante Fe" - Judy Garland

 

Have a gerat trip!!!

 

Does seem a little weird that someone named DBCOOPER would be taking the train instead of flying (don't forget your chute)

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I think if you came up through the folkie era and culture as I sorta did in the late 50s, early 60s, you couldn't begin even to remember even the ones you once did on stage. <grin>

 

"Her husband was a railroad man, died a mile and a half outa town. His head was found in the driver wheel... his body, it never was found..." <chortle>

 

So many... Heck I can't remember all the names, let alone lyrics. "Midnight Special," of course. Freight Train. FFV (Fast Flying Vestibule... Along came the FFV, the fastest on the line...) Even John Henry. I Never Will Marry. Wreck of the old 97. Casey Jones. Smokestack Lightnin'. Trouble in Mind (Gonna lay my head, on that lonesome railroad line, let the 2:19 satisfy my mind.)

 

Etc. and far, far more...

 

I don't think many here remember steam trains. I do, barely. There's something about the accessibility of trains "in the day" that we ain't got now. As Gordon Lightfoot wrote, "You can't catch a jet plane like you can a freight train..."

 

m

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Gotta throw in Buffett's railroad lady...written with some help form Jerry Jeff Walker

 

She's a railroad lady

Just a little bit shady

Spendin' her days on the trains

She's a semi-good looker

But the fast rails they took 'er

Now she's tryin', just tryin' to get home again

 

South Station in Boston to the stock yards of Austin

From the Florida sunshine to the New Orleans rain

Now that the rail p.a.c.s

Have taken the best tracks

She's tryin', just tryin' to get home again

 

She's a railroad lady

Just a little bit shady

Spendin' her life on a train

Once a pullman car traveller

Now the switchmen won't have 'er

She's tryin', just tryin' to get home again

 

Once a high ballin' loner he thought he could own 'er

Bought her a fur and a big diamond ring

She hocked 'em for cold cash

in a town on the Wabash

Never thinkin', never thinkin' of home way back then

 

But the rails are now rusty

The dinin' car's dusty

Gold plated watches have taken their toll

Yeah the railroads are dyin'

And the lady she's cryin'

On a bus to Kentucky and home that's her goal

 

She's a railroad lady

Just a little bit shady

Spendin' her life on a train

She's a semi-good looker

But the fast rails they took 'er

Now she's tryin', just tryin' to get home again

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You may end up on one of the old Sante Fe Chief trains (southwest chief)

. So..

 

"Atchison, Topeka & Sante Fe" - Judy Garland

 

Have a great trip!!!

 

Does seem a little weird that someone named DBCOOPER would be taking the train instead of flying (don't forget your chute)

 

I will actually be on the Southwest Chief... And no, I can't take a plane because they're still looking for me. [thumbup]

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Soul Asylum - Runaway Train

Lyric relevance:

Runaway train never going back, wrong way on a one way track, seems like I should be getting somewhere, somehow I'm neither here nor there.

 

 

Journey - Don't Stop Believing

Lyric relevance:

Just a small town girl, living in a lonely world, she took the midnight train going anywhere.

Just a city boy, born and raised in south Detroit, he took the midnight train going anywhere.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5I-SbwCHJ80

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