trivia songs that mention trains/ railways

[dgl]

Sticking with the Scooter theme, Nessaja features the line
"It's not a bird, it's not a plane ...
It must be Dave who's on the train..."

Yes, should have mentioned that, it's not like I've seen them live recently or anything

 

[AM9]

What about 'Trains And Boats And Planes' by Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas.

 

[fodphil]

Try Motorhead - Ridin' with the Driver

Ridin’ with the Driver Lyrics​

Iron child out of Vulcan's forge
Metal scream and thrash
Red steel in the driving wheel
Hear the pistons clash
Black dragon breathing
Big black smoke
Howling up the tracks

I'm riding on the thunder chief
Spit in the Devil's eye
No force on earth can stop me now
I like to see them try
Hey, hey, ridin' with the driver

Juggernaut comin' down the line, hear the banshee cry
Engineer like to lose his mind. glory in his eye
Too fast to live this way, too young to die

I'm ridin' on the Thunderchief, spit in the devil's eye
No force on earth can stop me now
Like to see 'em try
Hey, hey ridin' with the Driver

Hold tight, feel the drivers bite, hear the whistle moan
Engine rockin' to the left and right, vibratin' in my bones
Once the locomotive steals your soul, you got a Casey Jones

I'm ridin' on the Thunderchief, spit in the devil's eye
No force on earth can stop me now
Like to see 'em try
Hey, hey ridin' with the Driver

I'm ridin' on the Thunderchief, spit in the devil's eye
No force on earth can hurt me now, kiss your ass goodbye
My my, ridin' with the Driver

 

[Bungle158]

Euston Station by Barbara Ruskin 1967

 

[Poolie]

And of course this classic tribute to Neasden..........where the birds sing in the treesden!!!!!

 

[Bevan Price]

The Long Ryders - "Wreck of the 809"

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Bruno Mars - Grenade

“I’d jump in front of a train for you”

Surprised that sort of sentiment isn't roundly condemned on here, given that barely six months goes by between examples of The Clash being criticised online or in print for the cover image on the Combat Rock LP. Also someone needs to explain to Mr. Mars that emotional blackmail isn't actually a praiseworthy tactic when it comes to romance!

 

[lyndhurst25]

I thought that it was Leith Central, not Leeds Central, in the lyrics of “Looking for Linda” by Hue and Cry.

Keeping with the Scottish theme, there is a Scotrail version of The KLF’s “It’s Grim up North”.

 

[High Dyke]

Blackfoot - Train, Train

Cinderella - Heartbreak Station

 

[westernpunk]

day by day generation x

Day by day, look what the papers say
Day by day, look what the papers say
Stranded in the jungle
Trapped inside the tube
Hate your next door neighbour
Cos he's got more than you
Going round and round / day by day
On the cirlce line
Round and round

i wonder what other songs mention specific lines

 

[AM9]

day by day generation x

Day by day, look what the papers say
Day by day, look what the papers say
Stranded in the jungle
Trapped inside the tube
Hate your next door neighbour
Cos he's got more than you
Going round and round / day by day
On the cirlce line
Round and round

i wonder what other songs mention specific lines

Finchley Central - Northern Line: New Vaudiville Band
Take The A Train - NYC MTA (formerly IND Eighth Avenue Line): Ella Fitzgerald & Duke Ellington
to mention just two.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Pete Green (not to be confused with the late Peter Green, once of Fleetwood Mac) is a Sheffield-based singer-songwriter with a song called "Hey Doctor Beeching"... which makes the common mistake of letting Ernest Marples completely off the hook.

 

[Thornaby 37]

Try Motorhead - Ridin' with the Driver

Ridin’ with the Driver Lyrics​

Iron child out of Vulcan's forge
Metal scream and thrash
Red steel in the driving wheel
Hear the pistons clash
Black dragon breathing
Big black smoke
Howling up the tracks

I'm riding on the thunder chief
Spit in the Devil's eye
No force on earth can stop me now
I like to see them try
Hey, hey, ridin' with the driver

Juggernaut comin' down the line, hear the banshee cry
Engineer like to lose his mind. glory in his eye
Too fast to live this way, too young to die

I'm ridin' on the Thunderchief, spit in the devil's eye
No force on earth can stop me now
Like to see 'em try
Hey, hey ridin' with the Driver

Hold tight, feel the drivers bite, hear the whistle moan
Engine rockin' to the left and right, vibratin' in my bones
Once the locomotive steals your soul, you got a Casey Jones

I'm ridin' on the Thunderchief, spit in the devil's eye
No force on earth can stop me now
Like to see 'em try
Hey, hey ridin' with the Driver

I'm ridin' on the Thunderchief, spit in the devil's eye
No force on earth can hurt me now, kiss your ass goodbye
My my, ridin' with the Driver

I've always wondered if "Vulcan Forge" in the first line of that song was a reference to Vulcan Foundry at Newton-le-Willows

 

[fodphil]

I've always wondered if "Vulcan Forge" in the first line of that song was a reference to Vulcan Foundry at Newton-le-Willows

Can't imagine it being anything else.

 

[Gloster]

One that I don’t think has been mentioned yet: Cheryl’s Going Home by John Otway.

 

[Bevan Price]

I've always wondered if "Vulcan Forge" in the first line of that song was a reference to Vulcan Foundry at Newton-le-Willows

Can't imagine it being anything else.

There was also a US Vulcan Iron Works that built steam locomotives:

Vulcan Iron Works (Wilkes-Barre) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[fodphil]

Seen as the song writer was born and raised in the UK (Stoke on Trent) i reckon it could be Newton Le Willows

 

[ThirteenArches]

One that popped to mind, from Leon Rosselson, who occasionally sang on TWTWTW back then. Just a memory at such long range, but some of it went...

Every morning, every evening,
Packed so tight you just can't move,
Nothing to do but read the ads
On a rush- hour train on the London Tube.

...
A man got on at Piccadilly Circus,
Stout and round and his face was red,
They carried him off just six stops later
Pale as a ghost and stone cold dead.

Like sardines we're packed in tightly,
A million corpses down the drain,
A million bottoms touching nightly -
Aspirin will ease the pain.

 

[parkender102]

Nine While Nine - Sisters of Mercy (a Goth classic)

When it's passing strange
And I'm waiting for the train
Caught up on this line again
And it's passing slowly

Killing time but it's better
Than living in what will come
And I've still got some
Of your letters with me

And I thought sometimes
Or I read too much and I think you know
Let's drink to the dead lying under the water
And the cost of the blood on the driven snow

And the lipstick on my cigarettes
Frost upon the window pane

Nine while nine
And I'm waiting for the train

She said, "Do you remember a time when angels?
Do you remember a time when fear
In the days when I was stronger
In the days when you were here"

She said, "When days had no beginning
While days had no end when shadows grew no longer
I knew no other friend but you were wild"
You were wild

Frost upon these cigarettes
Lipstick on the window pane
And I've lost all sense of the world outside
But I can't forget so I call your name


And I'm looking for a life for me
And I'm looking for a life for you
And I'm talking to myself again
And it's so damn cold it's just not true

And I'm walking through the rain
Trying to hold on waiting for the train
And I'm only looking for what you want
But it's lonely here and I think you knew

And I'm, and I'm waiting
And I wait in vain
Nine while nine
And I'm waiting for the train

And I'm waiting
And I wait in vain
Nine while nine
And I'm waiting for the train

And I'm waiting
And I wait in vain
Nine while nine
I'm waiting for the train

 

[Drogba11CFC]

Song of relatively recent date, "in the folk idiom", to a rousing tune -- always liked by me: concerning the building of the Settle & Carlisle route.


In the year of '69 they planned to run a train
From Settle to Carlisle all across the mountain range:
They employed three thousand navvies to build this mighty road --
Across the fells to Appleby, that old steam engine rolled.

CHORUS --
And it's up in the morning, lads,
In wind, snow or hail --
Put your hands to your hammers, lads
And lay another rail.

It's seventy-two miles from Settle to Carlisle,
Across the roughest country in the British Isles* --
They thought it would take four years, but it took them nearer seven,
And the first twenty miles sent four hundred men to heaven.

* factually, very dubious -- however, "poetic license" ...

They set up shanty-towns to protect them from the cold:
Inkerman, Sebastopol, and Batty Wife Hole --
And when they tired of women, and drinking of strong beer,
They took to fighting bare-fist-style, and they came from far and near.

Now when the winter came, it froze them to the floor,
It blew them off the viaducts, it killed them on Blea Moor:
Some died of the smallpox, some of cholera --
Old Chapel and St. Leonards have many buried there.

So if you ride this famous line across the heathered fells,
When crossing Ribblehead Viaduct, remember the tale I tell --
There's Mallerstang and Ais Gill, and Dentdale's lovely wilds;
And navvy lads a-slaving from Settle to Carlisle.

Mike Donald did a few.

Mentions the S&C in verse 3

This one about the Hawes Junction crash

Speaks for itself

This one too.

 

[Efini92]

The Marshall Tucker band - Can’t you see.
The late Toy Caldwell on vocals and lead guitar (using his thumb).

 

[aliceh]

Chiming in with WM by Tom Aspaul, which features the lyrics:

So we're gonna take a ride on the Midland Metro
Line One, 'cause there's only one line

The remix version (with none other than Kim Wilde...) also has the line "Wolverhampton to Birmingham" in the middle 8, and the previous track (Euston) has some ambience from, you guessed it, Euston with the announcement of a Birmingham-bound train.

 

[Sand_elf]

My thoughts turn to Rudy by Supertramp from the Crime of the Century album. It features a station announcement from Paddington, about a train stopping at Reading

 

[DarloRich]

Last of the Steam-Powered Trains - The Kinks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_of_the_Steam-Powered_Trains )

The Ramones were also clearly fans of a boilered loco. As the sang in Blitzkrieg bop:

They're piling in the back seat
They generate steam heat
Pulsatin' to the back beat
Blitzkrieg Bop

 

[Harvester]

Son of a lovin’ man - I suppose ‘further down the line’ could be considered by some to be railway related! The song always reminds me of the Playboy Mansion dance scene in Once upon a time in Hollywood.