TAKE ME TO UNION STATION AND PUT ME ON A TRAIN

 

What is it about train stations, including Portland Union Station, that feel so mournful? The Rolling Stones caught the sorrow with No Expectations.

Take me to the station
And put me on a train
I’ve got no expectations
To pass through here again
Once I was a rich man
Now I am so poor
But never in my sweet short life
Have I felt like this before

 

Such finality, the feel of something important ending, and a sad get away after being stripped of the familiar.

 

Paul Simon runs the same thread for the homesick.

 

 

I’m sitting in the railway station.
Got a ticket for my destination.
On a tour of one-night stands
my suitcase and guitar in hand.
And every stop is neatly planned
for a poet and a one-man band.

Homeward bound,
I wish I was homeward bound,
Home where my thought’s escaping,
Home where my music’s playing,
Home where my love lies waiting silently for me.

 

Marshall Tucker says there’s nothing better than a train ride when the love that lies waiting silently at home starts making too much noise. Can’t you see?

 

 

Gonna take a freight train
Down at the station, Lord
I don’t care where it goes
Gonna climb a mountain
The highest mountain
Jump off, nobody gonna know

Can’t you see, whoa, can’t you see
What that woman, Lord, she been doin’ to me

 

Whatever your woman’s been doin’ to you, if you run off in a frenzy of doubt and despair you might have Johnny Cash singing in your ears.

 

No matter what’s happened between you and your baby, do not, I repeat Do Not, shoot a man in Reno, or Union Station, just to watch him die. Especially not Union Station. Just calm down and step away.

 

 

I hear the train a comin’
It’s rolling round the bend
And I ain’t seen the sunshine since I don’t know when
I’m stuck in Folsom prison, and time keeps draggin’ on
But that train keeps a rollin’ on down to San Antone

When I was just a baby my mama told me. Son
Always be a good boy, don’t ever play with guns
But I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die
When I hear that whistle blowing, I hang my head and cry

I bet there’s rich folks eating in a fancy dining car
They’re probably drinkin’ coffee and smoking big cigars
Well I know I had it coming, I know I can’t be free
But those people keep a movin’
And that’s what tortures me

Well if they freed me from this prison
If that railroad train was mine
I bet I’d move it on a little farther down the line
Far from Folsom prison, that’s where I want to stay
And I’d let that lonesome whistle blow my blues away

 

Brewer and Shipley wrote a nice pop anthem for 4/20 before 4/20 when weed equaled jail time.

One toke over the line sweet Jesus
One toke over the line
Sittin’ downtown in a railway station
One toke over the line

Awaitin’ for the train that goes home, sweet Mary
Hopin’ that the train is on time
Sittin’ downtown in a railway station
One toke over the line

 

The Eagles tie everything together with their take on a train song one toke over the line.

Quite the threat, wouldn’t you say? ‘I don’t know what I might be on?’ I’ll go out on a limb here and say what you’ll be on: A train. The rest is up to you being in the right place at the right time.

 

Say good-bye to the Iron Horse, to trains diesel and electric
Elon Musk is on the job, making power magnetic
Expectations great and small hit old-time railroad tracks
Where swaying cars of forgotten days move travelers back

 

That was my contribution. If you’d like to leave one in comments, please do. Consider Steve Goodman’s City Of New Orleans first:

 

 

Riding on the city of New Orleans
Illinois Central Monday morning rail
There are fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders
Three conductors and twenty-five sacks of mail

There all out on this southbound odyssey
And the train pulls out of Kankakee
Rolls past the houses, farms and fields
Passin’ towns that have no names
And freight yards full of old black men
And the graveyards of rusted automobiles

Singin’ “good morning America, how are ya?”
Saying “don’t ya know me? I’m your native son”
Yes, I’m the train they call the City of New Orleans
And I’ll be gone 500 miles when day is done

 

Drop off your troubles and climb on in. All Aboard.