By Tony Attwood and Tim Johnson
We recently posted a piece trying to unravel the song “Ride this train” and separate it from a song called “Riding on Train 45”. In this short piece we are going to update that information, and clear up any misunderstandings over these two songs, plus a third called “Train of Pain”.
And because “Train of Pain” is the latest edition to this collection we will start with that.
Train of Pain
In 1986 on the tour of New Zealand, Bob Dylan played “Train of Pain” several times. Each time it is an instrumental.
Heylin has a note about this song and says that at first Dylan “opened shows in New Zealand with an instrumental jam (later known as “Train of Pain”, after the girls sang this repeated refrain on the one occasion it gained a lyric.” But he reports that by the time the band to to Australia this was replaced by “Justine” (“a Don and Dewey song”).
Here is the original…
Later this was replaced by the re-working of “Uranium Rock” which emerged as “Rock em Dead” which we reviewed here.
The video we used on that review has now vanished, but we have another one. It’s not as good as the previous one, but it will have to do.
https://youtu.be/k8w2JFJbESE
Now the 1986 NZ “Train of Pain” tracks are all instrumental, but basically the same arrangement as “Riding on the Train”.
There are 3 versions of Riding on the Train, but only two of them are available (February 12 and 13 1986)
https://youtu.be/UYtdD2Tdl1Y
They different night’s songs both have the same chorus but different lyrics which suggests they are improvised which actually makes them pretty unique but at the same time the words are a bit meaningless.
On our listing of Dylan songs we have a piece called “Ride this train”. That is a 1986 song, and I’ve dropped the recording in at the end of this piece, which came at the same time as the wonderful “To fall in love with you”.
Riding on the train
...... I'll tell ya I swear I can be there and yeah I can be there I'll tell ya on the beat all night mama till you reach the top one more mama (I'll take care of you} on the train of pain on the train of pain (oh so) I saw her I see high (her) I see riding ahaa...I see ... on the feeling one more time baby keep on riding one more time baby cause you're riding on the train the train of pain riding on the train the train of pain riding on the train the train of pain aaah riding on the train on the train of pain riding on the train riding the track (train) one last… mama can you come on back ......tell you all the time on the train riding on the train of pain aaah
So we have one more song giving us 622 songs on the complete alphabetical listing.
Very many thanks to Tim for not only noticing this song but also persevering with me after I lost the first email!
Untold Dylan
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https://thebobdylanproject.com/Song/id/2884/Justine
https://thebobdylanproject.com/Song/id/4336/Ride-This-Train
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