BABY, I WAS BORN ON A TRAIN

Good morning, America, how are ya? In this jet engine age we look back wistfully to the time of trains with some of the best train songs we could find. Sure, we missed a few great ones (and probably your favorite) but for now here are some songs about the mighty locomotives that criss-crossed our nation in days of yore. All aboard!


"Waiting for a Train" - Jimmie Rodgers




"Driver 8" by REM




"Born on a Train" - Arcade Fire covering Magnetic Fields




"Folsum Prison Blues" - Johnny Cash, live at San Quentin




"Train of Love" by Bob Dylan at Johnny Cash tribute

TOM WAITS FOR NO ONE

Tom Waits does a pawn shop marimba in beautiful B movie black and white. You can't beat this clip. The old boxer is played by the legendary Jake LaMotta, the Raging Bull ( 83 wins--30 by knockout, 19 losses and 4 draws). Okay, tough guys don't dance, but scarecrow Tom does a moonlight jig beneath the window that jiggers the machinery of night. Nobody can take a punch like Jake, but Tom knocks him out. It's late! Who is this guy keeping all of Brooklyn awake? He's the coyote trickster, the beat boxer, the angelheaded hipster, the heartbroken thief--all the midnight archetypes rolled into one shabby suit--and he's thinking about a girl on a train.

Tom Waits is a national treasure. Buy the man a drink.

B movie man, John Garfield. Believing he killed a man in a drunken brawl, a prizefighter spends his life on the run. "They Made Me a Criminal," 1939