I just dug out a handful of CD's to take to my model railroad room and noticed that 2 of the CD's had links to railroads. The CD's in question are
Bob Seger his Greatest Hits album where he is standing on the rr tracks and
Chis Isaak San Francisco Days which has a picture of ATSF Stockton depot on the rear cover
so does anyone else have CD's or Vinyl (that's the big round black plastic ones for those who are not old enough to remember them) that has a railroad connection on them?
Back in the 70s jazz saxman Gerry Mullligan released an album with a number of railroad titled instrumentals called The Age of Steam.
One of the tracks is titled K-4 Pacific!
George
"And the sons of Pullman porters and the sons of engineers ride their father's magic carpet made of steel..."
I am a classical music buff, so I don't hear many songs with railroad lyrics - but there are two works from the Classical Pops repertoire that fit the bill:
Interestingly, radio announcers almost always title the latter, "Pacific two thirty one." Typically technologically challenged media types, they don't realize that the numerics are the axle arrangement, not the road number.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Some songs come to mind:
1. Long Train Runnin' - Doobie Brothers
2. Train Kept a Rollin' - Aerosmith
That's all I can think of off the top of my head. I know there's more, I just can't think of them right now.
Dan Stokes
My other car is a tunnel motor
Well, I'm a classic rock guy mainly. One song, I know pretty well.
Crazy train.
I have an old Bobby Vinton LP with him standing next to an old steamer with the big stack and cowcatcher, looks like the background scenery is mostly desert type scene, probably taken somewhere in southern California.Not long ago, I read somewhere that this particular steam engine was used in a lot of TV westerns and movies, I believe it is the same steam engine used in the making of the Tv series"The Wild Wild West".I also have an old "Boxcar Willie" casstte tape with him standing next to steam engine.He did a lot of train songs.I also have the sound effects CD from Nickel Plate 765 that was put out by the local railroad Historical Society as a fund raiser.
You can get it at www.765.org also an interesting story about NP 765 on their website.
If you're looking for railroad songs/recordings, go looking in Country & Western / Hillbilly / Blue Grass. Some of the earlier (1920's) railroad recordings was done by Jimmy Rodgers "The Singing Breakman". For a number of years he had been a breakman on one of the southern roads, off the top of my head, I don't remember which. But if your interested, thats the place to start. John T.
I live and work in Nashville, TN now and I have shot numerous music videos that involve trains or tracks for country music artists. It suprises me how many people just want the steam engines though for the videos and how many still write trains into their songs.
Josh Turner for instance, the song that really launched him was Long Black Train. Shot at the Tennessee Valley Railroad.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=7gybGXnciig
jawnt wrote: If you're looking for railroad songs/recordings, go looking in Country & Western / Hillbilly / Blue Grass. Some of the earlier (1920's) railroad recordings was done by Jimmy Rodgers "The Singing Breakman". For a number of years he had been a breakman on one of the southern roads, off the top of my head, I don't remember which. But if your interested, thats the place to start. John T.
I've got a recording of "The Wreck of the Old 97" on 78! Got it from my mother-in-law.
Phil Manzanera's LP cover for "Diamond Head" was I believe a RR publicity shot of a Union Pacific passenger train lead by E units under a cliff.
The Doobie Brothers box set cover design is of a locomotive.
Rod Stewart had an album out in the '80s where he is sitting under a freight car, next to the trucks. (nice railroad safety practices there, Hot Rod...)
Mike Post's "Railhead Overture" cover is artwork of a rail line heading toward the horizon.
On the back of a Lynyrd Skynyrd hits CD (there's so many of these now, I don't remember the title of it) the band is photographed sitting on a railroad trestle near their practice site. (they learned safe railroad practices from Rod the Mod)...and on the front of their debut album "pronounced leh-nerd skin-nerd" it's been my belief that they are photographed near a small town depot.
Think it was John Deere...not sure now...but somewhere I have a collection of railroad songs on an album put out by a farm implement manufacturer that used a CB&Q train to promote that years's new line. They had the new tractors on flat cars being pulled by a Burlington GP on the cover.
There was a collection of soul music put out by the Soul Train TV show where the album cover featured a caricature of a steam locomotive on a track.
There must be hundreds of other examples, but those are the ones off the top of my head.
I just remembered that Johnny Cash recorded "The Orange Blossom Special" , anyone remember this song? I think "Orange Blossom Special" was on the album he recorded while playing for inmates at Folsom Prison. Boxcar Willie sang "The Wabash Cannonball" and the" Legend of Casey Jones".
The Bobby Vinton LP I have doesn't have any train songs, but the album cover was photographed by an old train.
UP2CSX wrote:Let's see...Arlo Guthrie, City of New Orleans...Many different artists...Midnight Special...and, if you like soft jazz, Last Train Home by The Pat Metheny Group. No lyrics but a steam engine whistle at the end and one of the most haunting songs you'll ever hear.
GREAT SONG!!!!When I was stationed on a Nike Hercules missile base in Korea in 1973, we had a juke box in the base club, (not much more than a very small bar, and a pool table, and a jukebox, between myself, and a buddy and a Lieutenant we worked with, the three of us just about wore that record out!!!
One of my favorites!
Well, I'm a classic rock guy mainly. One song, I know pretty well.Crazy train.
Crazy Train? Classic? oh God I must be getting old.....
The Grateful Dead - Casey Jones, early 1970's
Josh Turner - Long Black Train, 2003
-Ken in Maryland (B&O modeler, former CSX modeler)
Just to add another one, Lee Hazlewood - Trouble is a Lonesome Town it didn't click with me at first as the UK cover is very different to the US version and I just bought a copy from the US which has him sitting by the tracks, plus the whole CD has references throughout to railroading.
Shaun
There is a rock band named Norfolk & Western or norfolk and western.
They even have a website: www.norfolkandwestern.org
Andrew
Watch my videos on-line at https://www.youtube.com/user/AndrewNeilFalconer
Classic country music is an absolute treasure trove for train songs. My classic country/50's music passion is equal to my love of trains & classic cars. Some off the top of my head:
"Tennessee Central #9" (Roy Acuff in the 40's-then done by Ferlin Husky in 1951)
"The L&N Don't Stop Here Anymore" (Bill Harrell & the Virginians-late 70's bluegrass)
"The Orange Blossom Special" (of course, but was originally recorded by the Rouse Brothers, who actually wrote the song while riding on the train's maiden voyage northbound from Florida in 1940 (really!) & was done in the style (half instrumental, half vocals) that Johnny Cash & Johnny Bond did many years later. (Johnny C. actually met one of the brothers happenstance at a concert in Florida in the mid 60's)
"Right at Home on the C&O" (Dog Run Boys-late 70's, early 80's bluegrass)
"Way Out There" (Sons of the Pioneers-late 30's, early 40's western music)"I was ridin' free on the old SP" was the line that caught my ear.
"Click Clack" (Dickey Doo & the Don't's-rock & roll in the early part of 1958-written on the train between DC & NY)
There are so many others, but it's late & that's all I can think of right now. Interesting aside though-back when I 1st got into trains & country music in the late 70's, my dad asked me once if the Nickel Plate ran down to Louisville, Ky. I told him no, & he explained that there was an old song by Grandpa Jones called "Eight More Miles to Louisville" that he used to listen to on WCKY Cincinnati in the mid 40's. He thought there was a line in it that went "eight more miles on Nickel Road." It wasn't until recently that I was able to snag a copy of the song, & found out the line was "this OLD road" but listening to it, I can see how it was easy to make the mistake (especially with those old AM radios back then-it kinda does sound like "Nickel Road")
GARRY
HEARTLAND DIVISION, CB&Q RR
EVERYWHERE LOST; WE HUSTLE OUR CABOOSE FOR YOU
Stephen Stills - Manasas (1972) photos of the Manasas station.
Songs: The Band: Mystery Train, In A Station.
Savoy Brown: Hellbound Train, Slow Train
Bob Dylan: Slow Train Comin'
Ricki Lee Jones: Ghost Train
10000 Maniacs: Girl On A Train
Crazy Horse: Gone Dean Train
Jimi Hendrix: Hear My Train
R.E.M.: High Speed Train
Leo Kottke: Last Steam Engine Train
and of course Bob Dylan's: It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A train To Cry.
Arlo Guthrie: Last Train
Pat Metheny: Last Train Home
The Monkees: Last Train To Clarksville and
Electric Light Orchestra: Last Train To London
The O'Jays: Love Train
and Billy Strange: Old Toy Trains.
Jay
C-415 Build: https://imageshack.com/a/tShC/1
Other builds: https://imageshack.com/my/albums
Yeah, I know I've got a few kicking around. All the old vinyl records are in a cabinet underneath my layout, along with my guitars. Music is my other hobby, but I don't play records much any more.
tomikawaTT wrote:I am a classical music buff, so I don't hear many songs with railroad lyrics - but there are two works from the Classical Pops repertoire that fit the bill:Little Train of the Caipira (Villa-Lobos.)Pacific 2-3-1 (Honneger.)
An obvious one is Duke Ellington and Billie Strayhorn's "Take the A Train." The story of this song is funny: Ellington wrote out directions for how to get to his home, and when Strayhorn arrived he had set the directions to music. Out of that came Take the A Train, a big band classic.
Not specifically a railroad piece but it is said Gershwin got some ideas for his Rhapsody in Blue for piano and orchestra from the sounds of riding on a train.
A local radio station plays a song with the lyric "Get on the funky train" but I do not know the name of the artist. I know James Brown had a Funky Train song but this one is different.
A semi-classical piece is Kurt Weil's "Train to Johannesburg," which received a driving, railroad-themed arrangement from the famed Morton Gould for a wonderful RCA LP back in the 1960s -- still a great test to see just how good your sound system is. And Gould also arranged the song "Beyond the Blue Horizon" in a railroad themed version as well.
There is a classical music ballet by Rodion Shchedrin, a Soviet composer, on the story of Anna Karenina. As you might recall at the beginning of the Tolstoy novel a railroad worker falls in front of a train, which Anna declares to be a bad omen, and then at the end of the novel Anna throws herself in front of a train. So trains and death are the real themes. Shchedrin has his orchestra creates very realistic train noises for the end part of his ballet. Having said that if you are not a classical music fan that is a lot of music to sit through just to get to the train part. The classic 1948 film of Anna Karenina has a score by Constant Lambert that has the death scene captured but interestingly what Lambert focuses on in his music is not the clickety clack of the wheels or the shriek of the whistle, but the hiss of escaping steam.
Dave Nelson
I seem to recall reading that The Blues, one of those uniquely American music forms, originally evolved from the rhythms of railroad trains. The old guitar players often lived in the poorer parts of town, "down by the tracks," literally. The Blues, of course, led to the birth of Rock 'n' Roll. So, you could say that the railroads really started it all.
For me, I like the Blues Project's "Two Trains Runnin'" and Cream's "White Room."
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.