I nominate “Wagon Wheel” by Bob Dylan. Not clearly in one of your categories unless “southbound train” could be specific enough. Great train feel and rhythms.
I like Sheena Easton’s “Morning Train (9 - 5).” A wonderful video was made which was filmed at a British railway museum.
Chaka Kahn’s “Through the Fire” does not have any railroad content, but a very nice video was filmed in Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal.
“Take The A Train” composed by Billy Strayhorn and performed by the Duke Ellington Orchestra is an unapologic celebration of mass transit and urbanism.
I’ve been entertaining professionally (singing, playing guitar and harmonica) as a sideline to my railroad career for 43 years. For a long time I was actually billed as the “singing conductor” (Jimmy Rogers was a boomer brakeman, and never stayed around long enough to get promoted: I did). I can sing a railroad song at the drop of a hat. Over the years I’d say my favorites are:
City of New Orleans
Canadian Railroad Trilogy
Wreck of the Old 97
Waiting for a Train
Life’s Railway to Heaven
Wreck of Number Nine
I’ve written a passle of railroad songs myself, including “Big Mike Heney” (about the builder of the White Pass & Yukon Route), “Life on the Railroad”, “The McKenzie Wreck”, and “Freight Train Rambles”. Many of these were recorded on my 1993 album “Life on the Railroad” which was actually advertised for sale in TRAINS magazine for a while back in the mid-1990s. I also played with Utah Philips long long ago at the Juneau Folk Festival in the old Armory Building. He was a real character. Moose Turd Pie…
My 5 year old granddaughter Adelle has just learned the words to “Big Mike Heney” from one of my old CDs. Her mother told me that she woke up singing the line from the song,“give me dynamite and snoose, I’ll build a railroad straight to hell” the other day. Forgive me, Father, for I have passed on the wild free spirit of the railroad business as told in our songs to her!
Enjoy the songs about the trains, wherever they may be sung.
Steve Hites
Skagway, Alaska
Midnight Train To Georgia by Gladys Knight and the Pips
Train, Train by Blackfoot
Crazy Train by Ozzy Osbourne, and I’m hopping on it now for including it.
I’ve heard several songs
Johnny Cash: Hey Porter, Wabash cannonball, Wreck of Old 97
Kenny Rogers: Gambler
Steve Goodman and Willie Nelson: City of new Orleans
Alabama: Ride The Train
Alan Jackson: Freight Train
Various bluegrass songs: John Henry, Glendale Train, Orange Blossom Special, Freight Train, Life’s Railway to Heaven
A lot of good songs. I can even play some of them on guitar.
Blue Water Line-The Brothers Four
Down by the Station-The Four Preps
My favorite is Merle Haggard’s “Miner’s Silver Ghost”.
Someone else may have mentioned it but Hobos Lullaby, Emmylou Harris and/or Woody Guthrie for me.
Wanswheel’s last post was most appropriate. B.B. King passed away yesterday at the age of 89.
Today is the birthday of Buce (Utah) Phillips, born in 1935; left us in 2008. He wrote “Starlight on the Rails”, “Old Buddy, Good Night”, and many other songs and poems about railroads and the hobo life.
Tom
I’m surprised no-one’s mentioned Johnny McCollums’ “Santa Fe All The Way,” one of the best rail songs of the modern era.
You can find it easily on You Tube. I still can’t figure out how to make a link to You Tube work. Computers aren’t smart, they aren’t dumb, they’re just MEAN.
You must have ticked off your computer somehow. I suspect you do not have cats.
How about this?
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Go to the YouTube video in question. Select the URL that appears in your browser as the clip is playing.
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Reply to a post. Go to the place within the text of the post where you want the video to appear. In the toolbar above the window you’re entering text in, click on the little picture of a video (it’s directly under the ‘strikethrough’ button to the right of B-I-U for formatting). Then paste the video URL into the box that comes up selected.
When you click OK, the video is automatically linked into a window.
You can also use the ‘link’ tool (the little picture of a chain - how cute!) to insert the video URL so that it’s clickable (‘highlighted in blue’) but this isn’t as direct as having the video appear right there in the post.
That’s the one brother! And thanks for the advice!
PS: No, I (we) don’t have cats. We have Basset Hounds, the closest you can come to having a cat and still have a dog!
23 best railroad songs from Harpers magazine http://harpers.org/blog/2014/06/the-twenty-three-best-train-songs-ever-written-maybe/
Great thread. Here are a couple great ones that got missed, or at least I didn’t see.
R.E.M. - Driver 8
Calexico - Minas de Cobre (For Better Metal)
The Pogues - Poor Paddy On The Railroad (cover)
A fun thread here,
Merle Haggard’s “The Silver Ghost” was mentioned before and that song has stuck in my head since I was listening to it on vinyl in the 1970s. All the songs on his album “My Love Affair With Trains” are good ones.
Some additions I’d suggest:
Texas Eagle by Steve Earle & The Del McCoury Band
Boxcars by Joe Ely
Georgia on a Fast Train by Billy Joe Shaver
Kansas City Southern by Turnpike Troubadours
No Train to Memphis by BR5-49
Off to go purchase some MP3s.
Stephen
Lots and lots of great songs mentioned above. Two favorites I don’t see: 1. “Alabamy Bound” by Ray Charles includes the lines: Just gave the meanest ticket man on earth All I’m worth To plant my tootsies in an upper birth 2, “Hobo’s Lullaby” by Arlo Guthrie (and others)