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        Not Pete Atkin >> Off-topic >> Can you think of a train song you like?
        
(Message started by: Kevin Cryan on Today at 12:15)
Title: Can you think of a train song you like?
Post by Kevin Cryan on Today at 12:15
Music Guardian (http://music.guardian.co.uk/readersrecommend) is inviting  readers to nominate favourite tracks  about trains for inclusion in its Reader Recommend column which will be published in next Friday's film&music section of the paper.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Readers recommend: songs about trains

I've no time for regrets, and even less time to set up an RR Facebook group, but I'm keen on nominations for this week's playlist. Anyone up for the ride?

January 11. 2008 12:00 AM Printable version (http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/01/mea_culpa_i_conceived_last.html.printer.friendly)
...........................................

Right then. This week, a topic that should lead to no confusion: trains. I need say no more than that, except to point out that we've already had Midnight Train to Georgia and Black Diamond Express to Hell Part 1. Finally, further to last week's discussion, I love the idea of a blog, Facebook group or other discussion forum independent of the Guardian column but I don't currently have the time to put it into action. Naturally, I feel very guilty.

Make tracks for the A-Z (http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/music/2007/04/readers_recommend_the_az_of_al.html) and Readers Recommend archive. (http://music.guardian.co.uk/readersrecommend) Deadline is midday on Monday. All aboard....[link] (http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/01/mea_culpa_i_conceived_last.html)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

NB. Deadline is midday on Monday.

Kevin Cryan
Title: Re: Can you think of a train song you like?
Post by Ian Ashleigh on Today at 13:27
Obviously we all have to mention Girl on A Train and The Original Origianl Honky Tonk Night Train Blues .

Others include:

Train in G Major - Lindisfarne
Night Train to Munich - Al Stewart
The Atchison Topeka and The Santa Fe
Chattinooga Choo Choo
Under Your Thumb - Godley & Creme
Last Train to Clarkesville - The Monkees

Just how long will this list be??
Title: Re: Can you think of a train song you like?
Post by bobtaylor on Today at 20:00

on 01/11/08 at 13:27:19, Ian Ashleigh wrote :
Just how long will this list be??


"as long as my right arm" as the lyric goes.
How's about:
Muddy Waters - All Aboard
Tom Waits - Downtown Train
Little Feat - New Delhi Freight Train and 2 Trains
Elizabeth Cotten, Taj Mahal or Nancy Whiskey - Freight Train
John Fahey or Leo Kottke - The Last Steam Engine Train
John Fahey - practically any track from his album "Railroad"
Savoy Brown - Train To Nowhere and Hellbound Train
Scotty Moore, Paul Butterfield or Elvis Presley - Mystery Train
Bob Dylan - Freight Train Blues
Rolling Stones or Robert Johnson - Love In Vain
I'm sure there are plenty more if required.
Regards,
Bob Taylor
Title: Re: Can you think of a train song you like?
Post by bobtaylor on 12.01.08 at 10:10
Here are some more:
Bob Dylan - It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
(also by Al Kooper, Mike Bloomfield & Steve Stills)
Sugar Blue - My Baby Caught The Train
Steve Winwood - This Train Won't Stop
Jimi Hendrix - Hear My Train A-Comin'
Spencer Davis Group - Night Train
Arthur Crudup - Mean Old 'Frisco
9 Below Zero - Riding On The L&N
Bruce Springsteen - Downbound Train
Freddie King - Lonesome Whistle Blues
Crosby, Stills & Nash - Marrakesh Express
Doc Watson - Freight Train Boogie
Dub Syndicate - Night Train
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee and  also by Lonnie Donegan - Rock Island Line
Johnny Duncan - Last Train To San Fernando
Elton John - Tell Me When The Whistle Blows
James Taylor - Riding On A Railroad
Joe Walsh - At The Station
Peter Green - Last Train To San Antone
Ralph McTell - Last Train And Ride
Steve Earle - Train A-Comin'
Rolling Stones - Silver Train
Howlin' Wolf - Who's Been Talkin'
(which contains the lyric "My baby bought a ticket, as long as my right arm")*
in case you were wondering from my previous post. * and the meaning of the lyric?
My guess is that at some period rail companies issued tickets with the names of all the stations en route, and if the woman in question was going a very long way , the ticket would have been very long to accommodate all the stations along her route.
But I've been wrong before.  :)
Title: Re: Can you think of a train song you like?
Post by Robert Reid on 12.01.08 at 12:46
Kraftwerk.  Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express, Trans-Europe Express.
Title: Re: Can you think of a train song you like?
Post by BogusTrumper on 12.01.08 at 16:21
Steve Goodman - City of New Orleans
Woody G - Lost Train Blues, Railroad Blues, Little Black Train
Title: Re: Can you think of a train song you like?
Post by Ian Chippett on 12.01.08 at 18:27
Does "The Magic Wasn't There" qualify?

If not, there are loads of train-related Ry Cooder songs.

There's also "Giant Steps" and "A Love Supreme" but they're 'Trane songs... Sorry.

Ian C
Title: Re: Can you think of a train song you like?
Post by Ian Ashleigh on 12.01.08 at 21:38
I have to add The Doobie Brothers' Long Train Running (without love where would you be now) .  Does anyone else remember Mule Train in which the singer hit himslef with a tea tray??
Title: Re: Can you think of a train song you like?
Post by S J Birkill on 13.01.08 at 00:29
And who could forget the Chigley Train Song ("Time flies by when you're the driver of a train") by the lovely Brian Cant. Or did I spend too much time at a BBC control desk back at the end of the '60s?

S
Title: Re: Can you think of a train song you like?
Post by Kevin Cryan on 13.01.08 at 12:46
Steve, I think you must have. That gem has not made its way on to anyone's Guardan listing so far.

There have not been too many mentions of Pete's songs either. This is the best of that few:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"PhilPacey
Comment No. 868718 (http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/01/mea_culpa_i_conceived_last.html#comment-868718)
January 12 15:41
Preston/gbr

'Slow Train' by Flanders and Swann (1964) is a classic - very funny and very sad at the same time. It's a lament for branch lines serving remote country stations with delightfully English names, which were about to be closed following the recommendations of the Beeching Report.

Pete Atkin's witty 'The Original, Original Honky Tonk Night Train Blues'(1971)is a take-off of all the train songs ever written AND - incredibly - explains how steam locos work! It was recorded by Atkin and Julie Covington on Covington's album 'The Beautiful Changes...plus'.

Martin Simpson's version of 'Reuben's Train', on his album 'Grinning in Your Face' (1983) brilliantly evokes the 'romance and brutality' of hoboing in America.

Benjamin Britten's 'Calypso'is one of his 'Cabaret Songs' (1979), settings of poems by W.H.Auden. In this one the poet, travelling by train to meet his lover in New York, wills the train to go faster and faster.

Sadly forgotten and hard to find recordings of, 'The Lonesome Train' of 1941, a cantata for soloists, chorus and orchestra, is a moving evocation of Lincoln's funeral train. Music by Earl Hawley Robinson, text by Millard Lampell.

Stanford's 'The Train' of 1910, one of 'Eight Part Songs', is a setting of a poem by Mary E. Coleridge which evokes the speed and power of the steam train. Unlike 'The Blue Bird' - one of the same group - it isn't well known; if you're in a choir, add it to your repertoire.
For even more obscure pieces -and some well known ones- check out my chronological listing of music inspired by the sounds of railways, at www.uclan.ac.uk/library/musrail.htm (https://www.uclan.ac.uk/library/musrail.htm). Please note this isn't restricted to 'songs' or to popular idioms - and it doesn't aim to list all train songs. (It's obvious from the postings already in that that would take some doing!)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Kevin Cryan
Title: Re: Can you think of a train song you like?
Post by Colin Crooks on 16.01.08 at 17:03
Has anyone in Britain heard of Gordon Lightfoot's "Canadian Railroad Trilogy"?
Title: Re: Can you think of a train song you like?
Post by Kevin Cryan on 16.01.08 at 20:11

on 01/16/08 at 17:03:35, Colin Crooks wrote :
Has anyone in Britain heard of Gordon Lightfoot's "Canadian Railroad Trilogy"?


I do - I presume that an Irishman living in Britain counts - and  so does at least one contributer to The Gurdian's list of train songs.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

lonniej
Comment No. 865760 (http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/01/mea_culpa_i_conceived_last.html#comment-865760)
January 11 9:08
Reading/gbr

A different approach from me this week. I love train songs. I just opened the paper and sat scribbling at the breakfast table. The result was a Jason-type list (although it's actually nothing like a Jason list):
'Train Leaves Here This Morning' - Dillard & Clark (or Eagles).
'Desperados Waiting For a Train' - Guy Clark (or Nancy Griffith).
'Night Train' - lots, but Buck Clayton and Jimmy Smith are mty favourites.
'Happy-Go-Lucky-Local' - Duke Ellington. Actually the same tune as 'Night Train'. Ellington nicked it from Jimmy Forrest, who was a tenor sax with him for a short while.
'Wreck Of The Old 97' - Lonnie Donegan or Woody Guthrie.
'Wabash Cannonball' - Lonnie Donegan or Roy Acuff.
'Rock Island Line' - Lonnie Donegan or Leadbelly.
'Railroad Bill' - Lonnie Donegan.
'This Train' - Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
'Homeward Bound' - S&G. You know the story.
'Canadian Railroad Trilogy' - Gordon Lightfoot'.

.............................
Sorry if these are repeats. Will now go back and do the job prop

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.

That contributer is said to be making his contribution from "Reading/gbr". I would not necessarily take it on trust that this is the case. My contributions say that I'm making them from "London/gbr", and I know for certain this is very definitely not the case.  I also know that I have done nothing to fool readers into thinking it is. It may be that somebody at The Guardian thinks that Coventry is now part of Greater London.

Kevin Cryan
Title: Re: Can you think of a train song you like?
Post by Kevin Cryan on 16.01.08 at 21:19

on 01/16/08 at 20:11:09, Kevin Cryan wrote :
I do - I presume that an Irishman living in Britain counts - and  so does at least one contributer to The Gurdian's list of train songs.

>>>>>>>>.

That contributer.

Kevin Cryan


To have got the word "contributor" wrong twice, and not spotted the error, is unforgivable.  


KC
Title: Re: Can you think of a train song you like?
Post by Pete Atkin on 17.01.08 at 09:47
I may have missed it, but I don't think anyone chose Wendy Waldman's 'Train Song', did they? -  "You can see them wave their hats as the train goes by....."   Always been a bit of a fave of mine, but sadly never, as far as I know (there's a challenge!), on CD.  
Title: Re: Can you think of a train song you like?
Post by Kevin Cryan on 17.01.08 at 10:03

on 01/17/08 at 09:47:36, Pete Atkin wrote :
I may have missed it, but I don't think anyone chose Wendy Waldman's 'Train Song', did they? -  "You can see them wave their hats as the train goes by....."   ....... but sadly never, as far as I know (there's a challenge!), on CD.  


I'm pretty cetain that it has not appeared on anybody's list, but you'll be happy to know that it is on (import) CD (http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/pid/6935407/a/Love+Has+Got+Me.htm).


Kevin Cryan
Title: Re: Can you think of a train song you like?
Post by Pete Atkin on 17.01.08 at 13:47
I might have known I could rely on you, Kevin!  Thanks!  I have duly ordered what is apparently the only available copy.
Title: Re: Can you think of a train song you like?
Post by Kevin Cryan on 17.01.08 at 14:21

on 01/17/08 at 13:47:30, Pete Atkin wrote :
........  I have duly ordered what is apparently the only available copy.


To those who may wish to purchase.

Amazon.com (not Amazon.co.uk) gives you accesss to 18 copies (http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B000A7BB42/ref=dp_olp_1/103-3529973-8947801), some of which are new.  


Kevin Cryan
Title: Re: Can you think of a train song you like?
Post by Kevin Cryan on 18.01.08 at 07:10

on 01/11/08 at 12:15:19, Kevin Cryan wrote :
Music Guardian (http://music.guardian.co.uk/readersrecommend) is inviting  readers to nominate favourite tracks  about trains for inclusion in its Reader Recommend column which will be published in next Friday's film&music section of the paper.


Kevin Cryan



This is the final Guardian readers recommend (http://music.guardian.co.uk/readersrecommend) listing together with compiler Dorian Lynskey's comments (http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/01/who_knew_there_were_so.html).

1   Late for the Train Buzzcocks
2   Love Train The O'Jays
3   This Train The Staple Singers
4   Rock Island Line Lonnie Donegan
5   Train to Skaville The Ethiopians
6   The Beeching Report iLIKETRAINS
7   Different Trains: Europe During the War Steve Reich, Kronos Quartet & Pat Metheny
8   Mystery Train Little Junior's Blue Flames
9   The Train Outkast feat. Scar & Sleepy Brown
10  From a Late Night Train the Blue Nile

The only surprise from me was that it was Little Junior's rather than Elvis's Mystery Train that made it to the listing. Mind you, I was working on the very unscientific principle that if Lonnie's version of Rock Island Line was going to be included, and a quick scan of the various postings said that it was in there,  then it would almost certainly be the Elvis version of Mystery Train , which I seem to recall getting quite a few mentions, that would get in.


Kevin Cryan


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