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

THANKSGIVING PRAYERS

Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and here are two old men as different as night and day saying their Thanksgiving prayers. Like good and evil, it might be hard to decide between the two, but you make up your own mind.


Johnny Cash, the Man in Black, sings a Thanksgiving prayer as warm as a bellyful of whiskey and a bowl of candied yams.



Williams S. Burroughs, author of Naked Lunch, offers a frozen Thanksgiving prayer on the end of a cold fork.

ROSANNE CASH BETTER VEEP THAN PALIN

Rosanne and her father, Johnny Cash

If you're like me, you love Johnny Cash--and the whole damn Cash family. If you think country music is all slick and heartless and commercial (Toby Keith leaps to mind) you should explore the classic country of the Cash family, along with the heartsick blues of Hank Williams, the sweet pop of Patsy Cline, and the tooled-leather ballads of Willie Nelson. These folks have soul, pure and simple.

And they're not all knee-jerk conservative dunderheads, either. Rosanne Cash just wrote a great piece for The Nation, entitled "Why I'd Be a Better VP than Sarah Palin." It's well worth reading, so click HERE.

Here is a clip of Rosanne Cash and another outlaw country liberal--Steve Earle--singing a juke-joint classic penned by Roseanne, "Seven Year Itch."