Many of you, who come out to see me play live, will undoubtedly be familiar with the song, "Train Keeps A Rollin". I'd say it has become one of my most popular songs over the past couple of years. It actually just filled the dance floor the other night at The Red Lion in Belleville. Good beat? Check. Sing along? Check. Jam-ability? Check.
It is interesting how this song came to be. In fall 2011, I booked a show at an old train station in southern Ontario. One condition of the gig was that I had to perform a train song. Now I could've performed "Freight Train" by Fred Eaglesmith, or "Mystery Train", or any other number of train songs, but I decided it was an opportunity for a songwriting exercise. 'Train Keeps..." predates the 2012 Song-A-Week Challenge by a couple of months (not sure of the exact date, somewhere around Oct. or Nov. 2011) but it was approached with the same spirit as the challenge.
I was pretty excited when I wrote the song, and really stoked to perform it at the train station gig the following Spring. About a week before I was scheduled to perform, I get a call saying they are going to have to cancel, due to lack of interest in their concert series, and low attendance at the previous few concerts. Needless to say, I was pretty bummed. After all, I wrote the damn song specifically for this show! That feeling didn't last long though because I realized that, if I hadn't booked the show, I would never have written what turned out to be, one of my most popular songs.
Consequently, that train station show goes down as the most important gig I never played!
Pick up your copy of "Train Keeps A Rollin"
here.
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