Trains are a theme that run across many genres of American music - folk, blues, country, rock, jazz, r&b, 20th centry classical...... (can't think of any rap songs, but who knows). The Blake Babies honor and update this tradition, with some great allusions.
The most obvious is "I know that train you're riding on is sixteen coaches long". A reference to Mystery Train - a song sung by Elvis Presley in his Sun Sessions (1955), a song borrowed from Junior Parker. Elvis sings "Train I ride, sixteen coaches long Train I ride, sixteen coaches long Well that long black train Got my baby and gone." Countless covers have ensued - among them The Band, The Soft Boys, Neil Young, Dwight Yoakum. (Also note that Mystery Train is also a title of a book by Griel Marcus and a movie by Jim Jarmush).
Apparently Junior Parker borrowed this verse from the Carter Family's "Worried Man Blues." This verse hasn't survived into the more popular versions of this song (e.g. Woody Guthrie).
Like Robert Johnson's "Love in Vain" (covered by the Rolling Stones) the train of the Blake Babies is taking his baby away.
The Blake Babies use the metaphor of the train to represent hard drugs and their addiction. This metaphor isn't a first. John Prine's "Sam Stone" used it "And the gold rolled through his veins
Like a thousand railroad trains...... There's a hole in daddy's arm where all the money goes."
The Blake Babies take the metaphor and run with it - the train - drugs- is taking away his baby.
I think this works on several levels. She (the drug user) is asking him (the narrator) to help her with the injection. The first line "Hold on to my arm" makes it first appear she is asking for moral support, but it turns out that she is asking for help to "cut off the circulation". This appears to be a larger dose than normal - a runaway train. I think he sees her leaving him on this current drug experience ("trip") lapsing into unconsciousness (maybe even death this time), but he also sees that he is losing her to the drug addiction- the addiction is a "runaway train" that will likely lead to her death.
Powerful stuff.
One point of confusion... I got the feeling from the 2nd verse that he was using with her. But reading over the lyrics here, I think that the second verse might be spoken by her (the user)- the quotation in the first verse should continue to the second verse.
Some of the lyrics remain a mystery. "The future is wide open." Really? Maybe from the point of view of the user- unless one receives liberation from death.......
"I am a hurricane." Beats me. Is it the narrator speaking? Or the drugs?
In Blake Babies style they merge the beautiful melodies and sweet harmonies with some fairly graphic imagery - "cut off the circulation ......the blood flows free from a broken vein."
Trains are a theme that run across many genres of American music - folk, blues, country, rock, jazz, r&b, 20th centry classical...... (can't think of any rap songs, but who knows). The Blake Babies honor and update this tradition, with some great allusions.
The most obvious is "I know that train you're riding on is sixteen coaches long". A reference to Mystery Train - a song sung by Elvis Presley in his Sun Sessions (1955), a song borrowed from Junior Parker. Elvis sings "Train I ride, sixteen coaches long Train I ride, sixteen coaches long Well that long black train Got my baby and gone." Countless covers have ensued - among them The Band, The Soft Boys, Neil Young, Dwight Yoakum. (Also note that Mystery Train is also a title of a book by Griel Marcus and a movie by Jim Jarmush).
Apparently Junior Parker borrowed this verse from the Carter Family's "Worried Man Blues." This verse hasn't survived into the more popular versions of this song (e.g. Woody Guthrie).
Like Robert Johnson's "Love in Vain" (covered by the Rolling Stones) the train of the Blake Babies is taking his baby away.
The Blake Babies use the metaphor of the train to represent hard drugs and their addiction. This metaphor isn't a first. John Prine's "Sam Stone" used it "And the gold rolled through his veins Like a thousand railroad trains...... There's a hole in daddy's arm where all the money goes."
The Blake Babies take the metaphor and run with it - the train - drugs- is taking away his baby. I think this works on several levels. She (the drug user) is asking him (the narrator) to help her with the injection. The first line "Hold on to my arm" makes it first appear she is asking for moral support, but it turns out that she is asking for help to "cut off the circulation". This appears to be a larger dose than normal - a runaway train. I think he sees her leaving him on this current drug experience ("trip") lapsing into unconsciousness (maybe even death this time), but he also sees that he is losing her to the drug addiction- the addiction is a "runaway train" that will likely lead to her death. Powerful stuff.
One point of confusion... I got the feeling from the 2nd verse that he was using with her. But reading over the lyrics here, I think that the second verse might be spoken by her (the user)- the quotation in the first verse should continue to the second verse.
Some of the lyrics remain a mystery. "The future is wide open." Really? Maybe from the point of view of the user- unless one receives liberation from death....... "I am a hurricane." Beats me. Is it the narrator speaking? Or the drugs?
In Blake Babies style they merge the beautiful melodies and sweet harmonies with some fairly graphic imagery - "cut off the circulation ......the blood flows free from a broken vein."