Page 50 - Blues Festival Guide Magazine 2021

The Lore of the Train

Photo by Carol M. Highsmith i

By Michele Lundeen “I’m gonna lay my head on the lonesome railroad line,
I’ve walked on rough-hewn, weathered railroad tracks on Let the 2:19, satisfy my mind.”
lonely stretches of countryside, away from the bustle of the - “Trouble in Mind,” Richard M. Jones, circa 1920s
city, and have found myself in another world – a world of my What’s the blues connection? The lore and fascination with
own, reflecting on so many things – my imagination running trains has been with us for nearly two hundred years. Trains
wild, filled with thoughts of another era. I feel as if I have been and their winding tracks can harken back to another time and
here before. The solitude and sense of loneliness of the tracks in a poetic, and sometimes tragic sense, remind us of life’s
themselves are powerful, yet they ground me. I am taken back trials, survival, wanderlust, excitement, love or even urgency.
to a time when life was indeed harder but at the same time, Trains have been a theme in music since the first half of the
maybe simpler. I nod in reverence and in respect. 19th century. Yes, those deeply rooted, subconscious memories
Melancholy comes to mind, but we are survivors at any have inspired countless covers of the classics and still resonate
cost, physically and mentally. If a train should roar by, the with songwriters... some lyrics are straight forward and then
intense, unstoppable power of it rattles me to the core and there are the double entendres.
reminds me of my place. I know those tracks could probably Train kept a rolling all night long
tell a thousand stories. And surely those tracks and those trains With a heave and a ho
have inspired many a tale – tales of life’s struggles, fear, And I just couldn’t let her go
poverty, pain, humor, love, loneliness and longing in one way, - “The Train Kept A-Rollin’,” Tiny Bradshaw, 1951
shape or form – many of these stories have come to life in Trains were a viable and literal means of escape from
countless blues songs. As Charlie Musselwhite said, “the blues harsh realities. During the Great Migration, six million African
reminds us that we are human” – and surely, we feel very Americans left the South by train in search of a better life, and
human and exposed when standing near or walking down moved to states in the North and West. “They left as though
some lonely railroad tracks that were laid with blood, sweat they were fleeing some curse,” wrote the scholar Emmett J.
and yes, no doubt, tears. Scott. “They were willing to make almost any sacrifice to obtain

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