Baker's Dozen

A railroad is like a lie — you have to keep building to it to make it stand. – Mark Twain, 1867

The railroad still enjoys a storied place in our society despite the fact that its heyday has long since passed. This can largely be attributed to its continued presence in popular culture, especially in film and music. Indeed, these media often romanticize trains as the ultimate symbols of freedom and possibility. Ever since Woody Guthrie spent his days riding the rails through the heartland of this country, popular music has had an ongoing love affair with trains that persists even today. So, in the spirit of Woody, Steam Train Maurie, Joe Hill and A No. 1, I present to you a Baker’s Dozen about trains.

“The Next Train Out of Town”

Joe Meek with Betty Miller

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As the preferred method of travel for over century, there was no better method of escape for a jilted lover than hopping on the next train out of town. And that’s exactly what Betty Miller plans to do since the smile that used to warm her heart has turned into a frown. Happily, she agrees to take a return ride on the rails if her man would mend his ways, but she’s quick to warn him that she’d be right back on the next train should he ever let her down. This song is a perfect example of using the train as a threat to keep a lover in line.

“Night Train to Lorca”

The Pogues

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The Pogues deliver a vivid depiction, both musically and lyrically, of an overnight train to the southeastern Spanish city of Lorca. Trumpets and Spanish guitar seamlessly mingle with the accordions and tin whistle of the band’s trademark punk-fueled Irish anthems. Although the details of this particular journey are never revealed, it’s clear from the lyrics that it’s an ominous trek: “Distant stars shining bright/In the cavern of the night/All is still and silence screams/To the thunder of the Lorca train.”

“Dr. Zhivago’s Train”

Nicolai Dunger

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Pulling out his best Van Morrison impression, rife with bending vocal turns and dense, layered instrumentation a la Astral Weeks, Swedish singer Nicolai Dunger references the classic 1965 epic film in this song about betrayal and broken promises. It’s a bold homage to one of rock music’s greatest records and it earns extra points for upping the drama with allusion to Dr. Zhivago.

“The L&N Don’t Stop Here Anymore”

Michelle Shocked

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This Jean Ritchie song, ably covered by Michelle Shocked, chillingly recounts the demise of coal-mining communities in Kentucky, brought on when the Louisville & Nashville Railroad stopped hauling coal from the Hazard Hollow. Told from the point of view of a coalminer’s son, its references to kudzu enveloping the vacant buildings relate the devastating effect of the mine’s closing on the physical landscape, while the following lines portray the personal toll it has taken on his father: “Now I used to think my daddy was a black man/With script enough to buy the company store/Oh but now he goes to town with empty pockets/And Lord his face is as white as a February snow.”

“Last of the Steam-Powered Trains”

The Kinks

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The Kinks’ 1968 album, The Village Green Preservation Society, is a sentimental tribute to English hamlet life and a lament to the passing of traditional English customs and history. “Last of the Steam-Powered Trains” fits snugly within this theme as it finds Ray Davies inhabiting the doomed ol’ puffer train. However, the train’s not sad, it’s defiant, vowing to “keep on rollin’ till my dying day.”

“Texas 1947″

Guy Clark

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This song is an autobiographical tale of when a six-year-old Clark witnessed the arrival of a streamliner in his small hometown of Monahans, Texas. Although the young Clark didn’t quite understand what was different about this train a-comin’, it clearly enchanted the locals: “…when they finally said ‘train time’/you’d a-thought that Jesus Christ his-self was rollin’ down the line.” Streamliner or not, all Guy wanted to do was lay a nickel on the track.

“I Often Dream of Trains”

Robyn Hitchcock

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Leave it to Hitchcock, music’s most accomplished surrealist since Syd Barrett, to dream of something as pedestrian as trains. Dig a little deeper, though, and his eccentric view of the world emerges in this account of a train journey through Basingstoke in which he dreams of finding true love in the cramped quarters between the buffet car and the corridor as “summer turns to winter overnight.”

“Nothing But A Blur From A Bullet Train”

Lambchop

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Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner serves up a positively dreamy description of a journey through the Japanese countryside on a bullet train. The stress of travel melts away as he stares out the window at the blur of scenery whipping by in a haze of abstract forms and exploding colors: “As we stroked the sunrise/stained the lake a hazy pink/with the jade tree green rivers/or the apple trees…”

“Subway Train”

New York Dolls

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Aside from the Velvet Underground, nobody chronicled the gritty mean streets of the Big Apple better than the New York Dolls. I’m not quite sure what David Johansen is whining on about in this shambolic burner of the band’s 1973 debut, but it seems to involve pimps, prostitutes, and endless rides on the New York City subway. The incorporation of “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” at song’s end is a nice touch, although you wonder if there’s another meaning to Johansen’s plea for Dinah to blow her horn.

“The Wreck of the Old 97″

Ramblin’ Jack Elliott

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Perhaps one of the most well-known songs about a train, “The Wreck of the Old 97″ recounts the derailment of the Fast Mail in 1903. Apparently, the engineer was feeling the pressure of on-time mail delivery and he pushed the ten-wheel Baldwin locomotive to speeds unsafe for the curve leading into the Stillhouse Trestle near Danville, Virginia. Nine people, including the crew and several mail clerks were killed when the train plummeted into a ravine. The song was first laid to wax by G. B. Grayson and Henry Whitter, but it was Vernon Dalhart’s 1924 version that popularized the ballad, cited as the first million-selling country music release. While a slew of artists have covered the tune, from Woody Guthrie and Johnny Cash to The Seekers and Flatt and Scruggs, I’ve always preferred the rendition recorded by Ramblin’ Jack for his 1962 Country Style record.

“Trains and Boats and Planes”

Burt Bacharach with Dionne Warwick

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There are several great recordings of this classic Burt Bacharach tune, including stellar readings by The Box Tops, Laura Cantrell, and Astrud Gilberto, but I had to go with the original Dionne Warwick version for one reason: those syrupy strings make me swoon. The subject matter is your standard “he left me and I hope he comes back soon” fare. The trains, boats and planes that took him away will also return him to me. Classic Bacharach!

“Westbound Train”

Dennis Brown

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Dubbed by Bob Marley as “The Crown Prince of Reggae,” Dennis Brown delivers an ace lovers rock groover with “Westbound Train.” Again, a common theme of train songs is featured here with Brown learning from a note slipped under his door that his lover has left on the westbound train, off in search of real happiness. Of course, Brown is not content to let her get away, so he boards that train and proclaims, “I’ve got to find you Cherry baby!”

“I Remember the Railroad”

Gene Clark

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We end this week’s Baker’s Dozen on a decidedly melancholy note with Gene Clark’s introspective “I Remember the Railroads.” Ruminating on how time can be a cruel lady, the narrator hopes against hope that he’ll enjoy a more graceful life-journey than the railroad, a once vital force that’s fading in the face of air travel. Who knows, with the price of gas increasing to the point of making car travel unaffordable, perhaps rail travel will rise again and our cities can once again echo with the sound of that lonesome whistle blowing.

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