Last Chance Train Song

In 1992, I wrote lots of songs that would eventually turn out to be Drive In Blues but lesser known songs that didn't make it came out as The Art Deco Sessions.  The ones that didn't make it would come out later on other albums, this one was revisited in 2001 for the There's Nothing left album.

The song is based on the old Gulf, Mobile And Ohio train route that went through an old area of Lincoln Illinois, where Grandma Ambrose lived not too far from and when I spent the summers over there in the 70s I would watch the GMO fly through the tracks and basically about riding the rails someday.  You can't do that anymore if the train security dudes didn't get you, then the freaks that deface the box cars with their graffiti would.

Life everything else, the railroads that we used to know would either get brought out by the bigger corporations or go bankrupt and then the bigger train corporations would take over. The Union Pacific for that matter or the Burlington Northern Santa Fe.  Anyway, the Illinois Central reference in the final verse is a nod to the other railway company that had tracks going north and south and while the IC was in town, they didn't have the many cars that the Gulf Mobile And Ohio would have.  Where was home at you ask?  Good question for I thought that going back to Lincoln would be home.

Even back then, Lincoln was a backward thinking town 20 years removed from today and even worse when I returned there for a forgettable family reunion in 1998.  Had we lived in Lincoln chances are I'd be a Grandpa by now since there's nothing to do but knock up the neighbor's daughter and have a shotgun wedding or get into fights with the local kids.  In 1971, I became friends or so I thought with a couple of boys not too far from the abandoned warehouse across the street and we had a good time.  Next year, the little fucks didn't want to be friends and ended up throwing rocks and stuff like that.  My brother recollects that I almost took on about 5 or 6 of another gang of boys that lived a couple blocks away from my Grandpa's place.  So I don't have a high opinion of that town.  At least back then, they had a Woolworths and a Record Store down to road to keep me busy.  Last time I rolled through there in 2007, everything was closed up except for junk shops an Antique stores.  But the town still looks like it did when we lived there in the early 60s.  Not sure whatever happened to the fairweather friends, but I'm sure they're grandparents and probably keeping it in the family, if you know what I mean.

Getting back to the song, we did a rough take for it on Drive In Blues but the arrangements was all wrong, especially on the drum boasts at the beginning.   In 2001, we simply let the guitars started out and the drums followed.


Last Chance Train Song   4:40

Union Pacific and Santa Fe
We used to have one an hour
But nowadays we're even lucky
If one passes through our town
We used to ride the rails by day
And we walk the highway at night
I'll tell you boys that it's not the same
It's just another endless wait

(chorus)
So take me home, GMO
Back to the place I was born
The dream is gone and I'm all alone
And I don't feel safe anymore
Take me home if you could
I just feel lost, misunderstood
Let me catch the last train out
And let it be homeward bound
 
It was a thrill living in a boxcar
The only worry was not to get caught
And we ate at the finest greasy joints
And watch the semi's pass us by
Now those fine eating establishments
Are getting torn down for those Mcdonalds
So I guess we gotta take our chances
Of handouts or from garbage cans
(chorus)

Well (I guess)  the railroad days are over
I suspect that they will never return
I suppose that it's  out of the question
If I could ever find a railway queen
But if you listen close to the wind at night
You can hear a train in the distance
And if I ever see that Illinois Central
To jump on it and ride I'll take that chance
(chorus)

GMO=Gulf Mobile & Ohio

Written by R.Smith/G.Redding

2001 Townedger's Music Emporium