Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Train Song

I grew up on the Kingston Trio version, but rapidly grew tired of the oversweet, drain every tear covers by PP&M, the Journeymen, Brothers Four, etc.  I thought that was all that was out there, and I was just throwing this into the collection for sake of completeness.

When I listened to the different versions I found I liked Roseanne Cash's lush and heavily backed interpretation and Hedy West's arrestingly simple one.  I eventually chose this one, even though it's a bit uncomfortable and stretches the song's meaning.  There's something compelling about it.  And it's got great trains.


2 comments:

Jan said...

Ok, totally on the fence about this one. I hate the "everything should be a protest song!OMGPONIES!!1!" arrangement. But the video is good and by the end of the song I even liked the musical arrangement. I'll have to listen to it a few more times to make up my mind.

Uncle Bill said...

I always thought the Peter, Paul and Mary version was very moving. This has its own charm, though.