1.
The Nashville Ramblers – The Trains.

“I can hear the trains underground
When I’m alone
I can feel the sun going down
How can I explain all the reasons
She frightens me so?”

What an incredible tune.

I suppose that, living as I do in London, I frequently DO hear the trains underground – hell, I travel on them on a regular basis. But still, for some reason the idea of underground trains always really excites me when it pops up in songs, or books, or whatever. When thrown out of context, it just seems such a mysterious, fantastical idea. I’ve always loved that weird conspiracy theorist notion (marginal and old fashioned, even within the realm of conspiracy theories) that there is a network of secret, underground railroads crossing the USA, transporting, well… who knows what? Nuclear waste? Alien carcasses? Moleman infantry? Shining balls of pure energy? Strange, caged god-monsters of an unimaginable nature?

I even love the idea just as a metaphor – like Elvis’s ‘Mystery Train’, taking him down into the dark; like a giant pre-internet highway transferring information and resources and personnel between the world’s extended networks of weirdos, dissidents, rock n’ rollers.

Whatever your interpretation, I imagine you would have to find your way to an eerie, special place to hear these ‘trains underground’.

So when I heard that amazing bit in this song for the first time, I didn’t think of a guy in London or New York or some other big city hearing ACTUAL trains underground. Instead I pictured this forlorn dude, in a huge open field with the big sky above him, listening to the mysterious, distant rumbling and clanking beneath his feet, reflecting on how this strange woman in his life “frightens him so”…

Thrown seemingly casually into this otherwise standard-issue yearning, insecure love song, these few lyrical oddities open the whole thing up into a kind of sprawling psychedelic grandeur…. and the fact it’s an absolutely barnstorming imitation Del Shannon-via-The Byrds ‘60s jangle-wonder of the highest order certainly helps. Wowza.

Labels: song reviews, The Nashville Ramblers