"Good morning, America, how are you?" - train songs are the best

I was learning to finger-pick “City of New Orleans” on the guitar the other day when it suddenly struck me just how many great train songs there are - and how many of them I love. I began compiling a mental list and after about 50 titles, I realised there have been more great songs featuring trains in a starring role than those about any other subject – apart, I’ll suppose, from lurv.

“Casey Jones”, “Smokestack Lightnin’”, “Mystery Train”, “Orange Blossom Special”, “Rock island Line”, “Freight Train”, “Last Train to San Fernando”, “Long Train Runnin’”, “Love Train”, “Train Kept A Rollin’”, "Chattanooga Choo-Choo", "Midnight Special", “Wabash Cannonball”, "Boxcars", “This Train”, “Folsom Prison Blues”, "Midnight Train to georgia", Marrakesh Express", “Desperadoes Waiting for a Train”…

There’s people running away on trains, being taken to prison on trains, hearing train whistles moaning in the distance, trains bringing their baby back  – or taking them away, trains returning the singer to his beloved home town, people dying in train wrecks, trains being robbed, trains as metaphors for… well, just about anything. Porters, engineers, conductors – they all get in on the act. Just as almost any film can be improved by sticking a train journey in it, the same goes for a song. Emotional things, trains - and of course, the regulare clickety-clack rhythm works in just about any musical genre. 

Here, for no reason at all, are some of my favourite train-related songs, excluding the classics mentioned above and any songs I’ve previously featured in this blog – and this is just the tip of the iceberg:

"Train Train", The Count Bishops - wonderfully obscure record from a wonderfully obscure London group, released by Chiswick Records in 1976 to absolutely no interest whatsoever. Should have sold a million.

"3:10 to Yuma", Sandy Denny. 1967 pre-Fairport Convention track from the singer with the most hauntingly beautiful female voice I've ever heard. 

"Stop that Train", Keith and Tex - lovely, slow Trojan reggae from 1967, featured on the The Harder They Come soundtrack. 

"Smoke Along the Track", Stonewall Jackson - his voice just sums up country music for me - hard-edged, twangy and mournful. He made some terrific records, and this, from 1959, is one of the best. 

"Trans-Europe Express", Kraftwerk - one of those bands whose greatness and originality is more obvious looking back than it was at the time. This came out in 1977. 

"On The Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe", Judy Garland - Look, you don''t have to be a friend of Dorothy to appreciate the occasional Judy Garland performance (for the impatient among you, she appears at 5'44"). Love this song, which is from The Harvey Girls (1946), and it's one hell of a routine. (For some reason, my mother loathed it.)

"My Baby thinks He's a Train", Rosanne Cash. Johnny's eldest daughter and British guitar wizard Albert Lee join up to create a Hot Country classic in 1981 - the genre and the rhythm of the rails were made for each other.

"Night Train to Memphis", Jerry Lee Lewis - one of the greatest popular music voices of all time, the best rock 'n' roll piano player of all time, the superbly grooved Sun Records house band, and a classic song (first done by Roy Acuff in 1946) = casual perfection.

"Pan American Boogie" (1949), Delmore Brothers - before Rockabilly, there was Hillbilly Boogie, and these chaps (from Alabama, but travelling from Cincinnati to New Orleans in this instance) were its finest exponents. 

"Down Bound Train", Chuck Berry. I was amazed when I heard this on the third volume of a series of double-albums of the old reprobate's work released in the 1970s. The song is so un-Berry like, I assumed it was a cover version, but this B-side of "No Money Down", released in 1955, is a Berry original. Mythic, I'd say. 

"Wreck of the Old 97", Johnny Cash - I presume the Great Man's chink-chunka-chink sound was entirely based on rhythm of a train. He made whole albums of train songs, so there's a lot to choose from, but I've always loved this hopped-up version of an old standard from the Johnny Cash at San Quentin album. (The picker blazing away in the background is Carl Perkins, by the way.)  

"Last of the Steam-Powered Trains", The Kinks. This number from their Village Green Preservation Society LP takes the basic lick from "Smokestack Lightnin'" and transposes it to Wiltshire. Strangely appealing and distinctly odd.

"City of New Orleans", Arlo Guthrie - written by Steve Goodman, this has a beautiful melody, lovely chord changes, and the best lyrics in all popular music. There really is something about trains that brings out the very best in songwriters and performers.