Train Train

Got stuck waiting for the train to go by today and remembered my summer by the tracks, which I memorialized in a TWANG! column...

TWANG!
That Empire State ain't mine
By DAVID REY

To borrow a line from eccentric country singer Victoria Williams – “I’d like to take this time to complain… about the train.”

Now without a doubt, trains are untouchable in the category of inanimate objects with the coolest songs written about them. Nothing else even comes close – boots and Cadillacs come in a distant second and third.

So why is it I hate trains so much right now? Might be because I just moved into a trailer that’s 50 feet from the train tracks.

Now every night is like the New Madrid earthquakes – with the vibrations from the iron horses forcing me to put my hand on the floor to stop from falling out of bed. Boxcar hookups at the siding just down the tracks are like the sound of an atomic bomb going off in a mountain of frying pans.

Keeerrraaaang! I’m not ready for that great atomic power.

Thankfully, this residency next to the tracks is temporary – just hanging out there until our new house is built in the north end of Cheney. Two months is all I have to share with the trains.

I’m thinking that by the end of the week I’ll be used to the noises and the trains will inspire a great burst of creativity. Maybe I’ve got a “Folsom Prison Blues” or “Mystery Train” in me.

Better yet, maybe the clickity-clickity-clack rhythm of the train will embed itself within my being. Then maybe I can play “Mystery Train” the right way. That song worked its way into its Elvis form out of blues and hill country tunes – the originator, whoever it was, must’ve had a shack next to the tracks.

I need to sit out on the porch and do like legendary bluesman Son House and his sidekick Willie Brown did. While Alan Lomax was doing one of his famous field recordings in Mississippi, with House and Brown on the porch of a mercantile store, a train choogled by while the duo was banging out some blues.

Undeterred by the sound invasion, House and Brown quickly adjusted their guitar timing to complement the train – hitting the downbeat on the clack and doing brushes on the clickity. It was a completely organic moment – like the opening of the first buttercup on a sunny early spring hillside.

That moment is but a part of the reason why trains inform the better nature of American music. The sound of the wheels turning on the track convey a natural shuffle beat – the burst of the horn emphasizing the chord change.

Moreover, the train is a powerful metaphor for escape, wandering, power and loss.

Along with that, everything associated with trains becomes more like a force of nature in American songs. From the out-of-control engineer Kassie (Casey) Jones, celebrated by bluesman Furry Lewis, to the footman who tells Son House he’d love to let him ride the blind, but alas, he can’t, because, “This Empire State ain’t mine.”

Now we know why Bascomb Lunsford sang, “A railroad man will kill you when he can and drink up your blood like wine,”in his 1928 song “I Wish I was a Mole in the Ground.”

But the train is also a celebrated sexual metaphor – the best example of this is served up by the Johnny Burnette Rock and Roll Trio’s “Train Kept A’ Rollin’” – where Burnette skips his stop at Albuquerque because the train kept a rollin’ all night long.

There isn’t enough space in this newspaper to contain all the great train inspired music – just like there is no radio that can contain the sorrow Robert Johnson emotes in his famous train song, “Love in Vain.” – “When the train, it left the station, with two lights on behind… The blue light was my blues and the red light was my mind… All my love’s in vain.”

So, I guess I should stop complaining about the train and see what it can teach me – of course, an uninterrupted night of sleep would also be nice…