Trivia - Best Songs with Rail Content

[gordonthemoron]

Navigator by the Pogues (and probably several other Irish Bands)

 

[2HAP]

Last Train to Glasgow Central by Billy Connolly.

The video is out there but I have failed abysmally to post a working link.

 

[2HAP]

Trains are Rolling by The Yetties.

 

[joke2711]

A couple of my favourites ...

Smalltown Boy by Bronski Beat

and also

The Alarm ... 68 Guns which is amazing

 

[Mikey C]

Another one for Underground fans, Suede's Saturday Night video (featuring an unrefurbished 73 stock and Holborn platforms)

This Derek Jarman film for the Pet Shop Boys song Kings Cross features the station and Underground station and would have been filmed just before the 87 fire...

 

[Thebaz]

F.F.V by the inimitable folk hero Townes Van Zandt.

Downtown Train by the equally inimitable Tom Waits, massacred a few years later by Rod Stewart.

The utterly marvellous Driver 8 by R.E.M. from the '85 album Fables of The Reconstruction. A paean to their homesickness, recorded in London.

Also, y'all know there's a fairly well-known English post-rock band called iliketrains, right?
http://www.iliketrains.co.uk/

 

[Mutant Lemming]

The archetypal spotters song which was a hit for Albert Hammond

 

[EM2]

This Derek Jarman film for the Pet Shop Boys song Kings Cross features the station and Underground station and would have been filmed just before the 87 fire...

Yes and no...
The footage was filmed a few months before the fire, but was originally planned to be used in the video for 'Rent' (some of it was, especially the shots of Chris Lowe in the station). It was only later (1989 tour, I think) that it was used as a back projection for 'King's Cross'.

 

[341o2]

Slow Train - Flanders & Swann - inspired by all those evocative station names soon to be axed due to the Beeching Report

Are Ye Right there Mixchael - Percy French

 

[TheSeeker]

Department S - I want

 

[NeroWolfe]

Engine # 9 - Wilson Pickett

 

[nlogax]

The Avenue by OMD because of the looping sample which really works. Nice fan vid here using a clip from a Tarkovsky film featuring a draisine.

Let's ignore Locomotion by the same band because it's just dire..

 

[Intercity 225]

And for anyone into a bit of loopy Techno/House try Express by Kink which is made up of lots of railroad samples...

This track (excuse the pun!) is very clever, thanks for introducing me to it!

I'm a huge fan of underground house and techno anyway and this kind of record would be right up my street regardless... the fact it's been produced using sounds from the railway is merely a bonus. Very impressed!

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Girls at Our Best - This Train:

Godley & Creme - Under Your Thumb:

MC Pitman - Waiting:

Or of course anything by Blyth Power or Eastfield.

 

[flymo]

Nobody mentioned 'The Seekers' and 'Morningtown Ride' or 'Flash and the Pan' and 'Waiting for a Train' yet ?

Both Australian bands by the way, not that it is relevant of course....

 

[61653 HTAFC]

This one is tenuous, but still:

 

[gysev]

Belgian producer Wouter Van Belle is a well-known railfan and in 2005 he wrote "Pacific".

And this classic filmed in Schaarbeek (Brussels): Moskow Diskow by Telex.

 

[341o2]

Did he ever return - no, he never returned. A protest about fare increases on the Boston subway leaving a passenger trapped on it

 

[341o2]

Wreck Of The Old 97 by Johnny Cash?

I was going to mention that one

And The Trolley song, Judy Garland Meet me in St Louis

I note the OP has specified songs as opposed to music - thought of the Coronation Scot used as the theme in the Paul Temple detective series, or Intercity 125, both orchestural pieces rather than songs

 

[70014IronDuke]

Neil Young is a train freak from his time as a kid near a freight yard in Winnipeg

He combines that with a touch of sociological pathos in Southern Pacific

 

[61653 HTAFC]

How about this one:
Pete Green (not to be confused with Fleetwood Mac's Peter Green) - Hey Dr. Beeching:

Or indeed this one from popular YouTuber Jay Foreman:

 

[Bevan Price]

Too many to list them all, so just a few.
I would agree about "East Coast Flyer" by Big Big Train, and add:

Rare Earth - "Train To Nowhere"

(cover of original by Savoy Brown)

Grand Funk Railroad - "The Locomotion"

The Kinks - "The Last Of The Steam-Powered Trains"

Jethro Tull - "Locomotive Breath"

Black Country Communion - "Big Train"

 

[Marlow]

This track (excuse the pun!) is very clever, thanks for introducing me to it!

I'm a huge fan of underground house and techno anyway and this kind of record would be right up my street regardless... the fact it's been produced using sounds from the railway is merely a bonus. Very impressed!

No problem mate glad you enjoyed it!

I agree it's a very clever tune, brilliantly put together and great use of sounds. KiNK is a great producer you should check some of his other stuff too.

 

[70014IronDuke]

Well, there's thousands of train songs out there, but this surely has to be in the top 10 - soulfull ain't the word to describe it - here performed by the songwriter.

 

[E_Reeves]

Rattle that lock by David Gilmour featuring the beautiful SNCF jingle!

 

[swj99]

Kundalini Express - Love and Rockets

Red Streamliner - Little Feat

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Mike Watt - Big Train:

 

[adrock1976]

Gerry Rafferty with Baker Street.

This was written after the break up of Stealers Wheel that Rafferty used to be a member of, and all the various legal wranglings that happened afterwards. During that time, Rafferty was a regular user of the overnight sleeper train from (as he is originally from Paisley) Glasgow to London. The solicitor's office that he used was based close to Baker Street station.

Continuing with a Scotland/Australia theme, Rock 'n' Roll Train by AC/DC from their 2008 "Black Ice" album. Both Malcolm (sadly no longer with us after passing away in December 2017) and Angus Young were originally from the Cranhill area of Glasgow.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Gerry Rafferty with Baker Street.

This was written after the break up of Stealers Wheel that Rafferty used to be a member of, and all the various legal wranglings that happened afterwards. During that time, Rafferty was a regular user of the overnight sleeper train from (as he is originally from Paisley) Glasgow to London. The solicitor's office that he used was based close to Baker Street station.

Continuing with a Scotland/Australia theme, Rock 'n' Roll Train by AC/DC from their 2008 "Black Ice" album. Both Malcolm (sadly no longer with us after passing away in December 2017) and Angus Young were originally from the Cranhill area of Glasgow.

There's an urban legend associated with Baker Street, namely that the saxophone part was played by Bob Holness, later the host of the 1980s TV game show Blockbusters.

It wasn't!

 

[341o2]

This train Johnny Cash