Good songs about trains

Troubadour Folk Club held a Train Concert on Sunday, February 23, at the Woy Woy CWA Hall.

"Few of us realised how many really good songs there were about trains until this concert put them all together in a wonderful musical clump," said publicity officer Ms Sue Robinson.

"There were songs about building railways, robbing them, committing crimes as passengers, and crew jumping trains.

"There is a range of songs which all use the sound of the train's whistle to indicate loneliness, lost freedoms, and love, leaving or arriving.

"The songs and stories of the night showed clearly that the train journey has become iconic.

"Representing far more than just travel, the train is used in music as a metaphor for loneliness and separation, homecoming, running away, making new starts, and love in all phases of a relationship.

"Brother can you Spare a Dime, for example, sung by Tom Flood, contrasts the successful and powerful man who could build a railroad and make it run with the destitute beggar he had become.

"Trains took women to prison to visit their men and when the light of a midnight train shone through the bars of just one cell in a jail, the cell where prisoners stayed the night before they were released, The Midnight Special (sung by Hugh Worrall) was written about that train.

"Rick Rack Retro performed their own song, Coal Train, for their Troubadour debut, the Troubalukers sang their maddeningly mesmerising Ukulele Railway Song - making the audience join in.

"The Russells presented Crystal Chandeliers from Johnny Cash, and the equally poignant Solid Gone.

"George May had the joint jumping with Choo Choo Ch Boogie and Folsom Prison Blues, Linda Graham sang Peace Train and Last Train to Guildford, Ken Grosse had us all join in with Freight Train and Steel Rail Blues, Slightly Off, Bill Bekric, and Sunlit (and a Three Day Growth) also played.

"Ian Smith, performing for us for the first time gave us Dylan, managing to inspire such magnificent harmonies from the audience that he vowed he would pay to see us all sing again.

"Our final performance was from Cec Bucello, who arrived damp and delayed but in time to rock the room one last time with Rambling Man," said Ms Robinson.

Media Release, 26 Feb 2013

Sue Robinson, Troubadour Folk Club