What’s your favorite train-related song?
My favorites include Folsom Prison Blues by Johnny Cash, On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe as sung by Bing Crosby, and Chattanooga Choo-Choo as recorded by Glenn Miller.
You should try to find “Songs and Sounds of Canadian Steam” by Dave Baker (Coast Country Productions, PO Box 439, 1195 Davie Street, Vancouver, BC Canada V6E 1N2)
Includes covers of “Canadian Pacific” and “Canadian Railroad Trilogy”, some other covers, some self written and some traditional Canadian railway songs. 14 songs total and it is awesome. [tup]
Utah Phillips “Good Though” CD is my favorite with a full track devoted to NKP 759 complete with a doppler effect like a jet on steroids breaking the sound barrier at ground level. “Tolono” and "Calling Trains’ are particularly good. The whole of it is devoted to railroading. Gritty and touching stuff. Hemmingway said it best, “Man’s mistress is nostalgia…”
Haven’t we’ve done this topic to 
Oh Well, I guess “I’m goin’ off the rails on the crazy train…” 
There are so many which comes to mind. Anything Bxcar Willie, City New Orleans by Nelson. I would say my all time favorite is Rock Island Line by Cash.
I’m kinda partial to “The Wreck of the 'Ole 97” and “Orange Blossom Special.”.[C):-)]
The Roy Clarke version of the Orange Blosseom Special is here:
http://www.homestead.com/deenotes/johncash.html
From that web site:
“ORANGE BLOSSOM SPECIAL” WAS THE FIRST STREAMLINE TRAIN TO BE SEEN IN FLORIDA. IN 1939, WHILE THE AWESOME MARVEL WAS PARKED AT UNION STATION, TWO YOUNG MEN IN THEIR 20s TOOK THE PROMOTION TOUR THROUGH THE ENTIRE TRAIN. BOTH OF THE GENTS WERE WELL-POLISHED FIDDLERS.
THEY WENT STRAIGHT HOME, AND WITHIN ABOUT 30 TO 40 MINUTES, THEY WROTE A NEW SONG THAT INCLUDED MUSIC AND LYRICS. THEY CALLED IT "ORANGE BLOSSOM SPECIAL. "
THEIR FIDDLE MUSIC WAS GEARED TO THE SOUNDS AND RYTHEM OF THE TRAIN. THEIR NAMES WERE ERVIN ROUSE AND CHUBBY WISE. THE ROUSE BROTHERS PUBLISHED THE SONG THAT SAME YEAR.
IT WAS RECORDED ON RCA RECORDS.
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“Give My Love To Rose”;“Blue Train”;“Train of Love”;"Rock Island Line"by Johnny Cash.
"Baby Likes To Rock It(Like A Boogie Woogie ChooChoo Train)"by The Tractors.
"I Heard That Lonesome Whistle Blowin’"by Hank Williams.
"ChoChoo Ch’Boogie"by Asleep at the Wheel.
"500 Miles Away From Home"by Bobby Bare.
"King Of the Road"by Roger Miller.
"Mystery Train"by Elvis.
"Mama Tried"by Merle Haggard.
"You Never Even called Me By My Name"by David Allen Coe*.
(*There’s a line it that goes:“I Was Drunk,The day My Mom Got Out Of Prison.And I Went To Pick her Up in the rain.But Before I Could get To the station In My Pickup truck,She Got run Over By A Damn Old Train!!”.).
In “Urban Cowboy”,Charlie Daniel’s Has A Cameo appearance Where He Plays"Orange Blossom special"As well.
Southern Pacific By Neil young and Train Travelin’ by Dierks Bentley & The Del McCoury Band also Heart of Gold by Neil Young has a railroady sound to it.
Canadian Railroad Trilogy, Steel Rail Blues, The Watchman’s Gone, all written by Gordon Lightfoot.
CANADIANPACIFIC2816
“There was a time in this fair land when the railroad 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 too silent to be real.” Gordon Lightfoot
I agree with SFbrkm that Johnny Cash’s Rock Island Line is one of the best. Those last lines are great:
"The engineer said before he died there were two more drinks that he’d like to try.
The conductor said what could they be?
A hot cup of coffee and a cold glass of tea.
"Well, the Rock Island Line is a mighty good road,
The Rock Island Line is the road to ride,
The Rock Island Line is a mighty good road,
And if you ride it, you got to ride it like your find it,
Get your ticket at the station for the Rock Island Line."
1.Choo Choo Ch’Boogie- Louis Jordan & The Tympany Five ( The original!)
2.She Caught The Katy-The Blues Brothers
3.C&A Blues-Big Bill Broonzy
Joliet Dave
Some of the eariler songs have been published in “Singing Rails” by Wayne Erbsen (Native Ground Music,Inc., 1997).
Great Poems from RAILROAD MAGAZINE (Wayner Publications,1968) contains many that were set to music.
Of all of these, I kinda favor “Life’s Railway to Heaven” by M. E. Abbey & Charles D. Tillman, but not so much as to ignore the others. Most are from the days before air brakes and they portray a rather different time.
my favorite is: “Long Train Runnin’” by The Doobie Brothers.
My two favorites are Midnight Special and Rock Island Line, sung by Leadbelly.
Jerry
Rome, Italy / Hammond, IN
My favorite is The Wabash Cannonball. Vocals sung by Roy Acuff can be heard at www.shurls.com/WabashCannonball.htm
The Kansas State Univ, Marching Band plays an instrumental version at all athletic events. I particularly like the drum simulation of the sound of the trains wheels clattering across a diamond. www.netheaduniversity.com/sounds/KansasStateUWabash_Cannonball_(1996_KSUMB).mp3
Mark
The Kansas State version is pretty catchy, but I am not sure what the tie-in is to the Wabash. Did it go to KC?
You’re right, the drum emphasis is pretty cool…
Wonder if Purdue know about this…but then again the way they have been playing, it would have to be re-written to be “Wabash Minnie-ball…”[}:)]
Yeah, “Heart of Gold” does have a railroady feel to it.
My favorite probably is Victoria Williams “Demise of the Caboose.” I don’t think
it received much airplay. But it’s obvious that she digs the whole bygone caboose
romanticism deal…
Bill E.
"Over the mountains, and over the plain,
Into the muskeg, and into the rain.
Up the St. Lawrence, all the way to Gaspe,
Swinging our hammers, and drawing our pay.
A dollar a day, and a place for our heads;
a drink to the living, a toast to the dead!
"Oh, the song of the future has been sung.
All the battles have been won.
On the mountaintops we stand,
All the world at our command:
We have opened up the soil,
With our teardrops and our toil."
In the days when the trains were made of wood and the men were made of iron, that was railroading!
Hi J.S. Green
The Wabash main line stretched from Buffalo to Detroit to St. Louis, Kansas City, Omaha and DesMoines. It crossed the Chicago to St. Louis main at Decatur where their shops were located. Another line ran from St. Louis to Kansas City and the Wabash competed head to head with the MoPac for both passenger and freight traffic between those two cities. You can find a detailed map of the Wabash routes on the Wabash RR Historical Society web site. Incidentally the background music at that site is a 5-string banjo rendition of the Wabash Cannonball.
The Cannonball was actually their crack overnight train on the Detroit-St. Louis run. The Bluebird, Banner Blue and Midnight ran between Chicago and St. Louis in competition with the Illinois Central, Alton (GM&O) and C&EI trains. The City of St.Louis was a joint Wabash and Union Pacific streamliner to California. The Wabash handled it between St. Louis and Omaha and the UP from there to California. The Wabash also owned the Ann Arbor giving it access to points well up into Michigan. The Wabash was a far larger railroad than many people realize. It was noted not only for its excellent passenger trains but also for its 60mph manifest freights in an era when most other railroads freight trains seldom exceeded 30mph.
Mark