Inspired by Sunday’s blog post, this month’s playlist is all songs about trains.
There’s no shortage of songs about trains – Wikipedia has a list of almost 800 – but what I did notice when compiling this is that many are minor key laments. There don’t seem to be many songs about liking trains, but instead they’re metaphors for life not going well. In other words, the subject of the song is taking the train because they don’t have a car and can’t afford to fly. I was also surprised at how many American songwriters have written songs about trains, considering that the American train network is nowhere near as extensive as it could be.
On to the playlist. As always, you can listen to this on Spotify.
- “Crazy Train” by Ozzy Osbourne. We sadly lost Ozzy earlier this year, although not until after a massive farewell gig for charity. As far as I’m aware, Ozzy never had a train named after him, crazy or otherwise, but there is a tram in Birmingham named after him.
- “Urban Train (Wippenberg Remix)” by Tiësto featuring Kirsty Hawkshaw. I chose this remix over the original as I think it’s superior, but also because it has a clickety-clack feel as if you’re on a train going over jointed track.
- “Slow Train” by Flanders and Swann. This was written in 1963, and laments the closure of railway stations and lines in Great Britain as part of the Beeching cuts. Wikipedia helpfully lists every station referenced in the song; not every station mentioned actually closed.
- “London Underground” by Amateur Transplants. The Amateur Transplants were a musical comedy double act, consisting of two doctors: Dr Suman Biswas, now a consultant anaesthetist, and Adam Kay, who quit medicine and is now better known as the author of ‘This Is Going To Hurt’. This is a parody of ‘Going Underground’ by The Jam; released in 2005, it’s a complaint about Tube drivers going on strike. Notably, it complains about the drivers earning £30,000 per year – 20 years later and it’s closer to £80,000 per year. And this is why you should join a union.
- “I Like Trains” by LilDeuceDeuce. I had to include at least one upbeat song in here. This probably makes more sense if you watch the video, and are familiar with TomSka’s asdfmovie series on YouTube.
- “Don’t Stop Believin'” by Journey. “She took the midnight train going anywhere…” Fun fact – when originally released in the UK in 1981, it only reached number 62 in the singles charts. It wasn’t until 2009 that it broke into the top 20, but by 2014 it had sold a million copies in the UK.
- “The Nightrain” by Kadoc. Not much to say about this, other than that I used to have it on audio cassette.
- “The Train” by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. Another downbeat song about getting the train. See what I mean?
- “Train Kept a Rollin'” by Aerosmith. I’ll be honest, I hadn’t come across this song until compiling this list. I think it’s notable that there’s three classic rock songs in here.
- “King’s Cross” by Pet Shop Boys. Yes, another rather downbeat song about the station and the area of London surrounding it. This was before the massive regeneration that has taken place in recent years.
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