Ride this train

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Ride this train
Studio album by Johnny Cash

Publication
(s)

1960

Label (s) Columbia Records

Genre (s)

Country music

Title (number)

8th

running time

32:20

occupation
  • Johnny Cash, vocals, guitar
  • Harold B. "Shot" Jackson, steel guitar and dobro
  • Johnny Western, guitar
  • Gordon N. Terry, Fiddle

production

Don Law

chronology
Sings Hank Williams Ride this train Now, There Was a Song!

Ride This Train is the eighth studio album by the American country singer Johnny Cash . It was released on Columbia Records in September 1960 and was produced by Don Law. It is Cash's first concept album .

Songs

Already on the cover of the album it is mentioned that Ride This Train is not a collection of songs about trains, but a journey across America on a train. All songs are connected with each other through small introductions. These transitions, written and spoken by Cash, are underlaid with the sound of a moving train. Cash begins all introductions with the words: "Ride this train ..." , hence the title of the album. Cash later also used this introduction at concerts when he wanted to introduce a song with spoken text (heard for example on the album At Madison Square Garden ).

The songs themselves have little in common with trains. Most of them are about the hard life of workers. Loading Coal thematizes the origin of many American place names by the Indians and the mining of coal in the mine, Lumberjack a woodcutter, Boss Jack the cotton farm and a slave owner and Old Doc Brown a poor country doctor who dies alone. The last song is the first recording where Cash doesn't sing, just speaks throughout. Cash later also used so-called rhythmic speaking in other songs such as A Boy Named Sue , One Piece at a Time or Drive On (to be found on American Recordings ), mostly coupled with vocal interludes.

Slow Rider is about the Wild West and is the adaptation of the classic cowboy song I Ride an Old Paint . Going to Memphis is the reworking of a traditional about chained prisoners. When Papa Played the Dobro is about poverty, while Dorraine of Ponchartrain is a sad story about two lovers and was clearly influenced by the classic folk piece The Lakes of Ponchartrain .

Track list

  1. "Loading Coal" ( Merle Travis ) - 4:58
  2. "Slow Rider" (Cash) - 4:12
  3. "Lumberjack" ( Leon Payne ) - 3:02
  4. "Dorraine of Ponchartrain" (Cash) - 4:47
  5. "Going to Memphis" (Cash, Hollie Dew, Alan Lomax ) - 4:26
  6. "When Papa Played the Dobro" (Cash) - 2:55
  7. "Boss Jack" ( Tex Ritter ) - 3:50
  8. "Old Doc Brown" ( Red Foley ) - 4:10

Extended CD edition

The album was re-released on CD in March 2002 and contained four additional tracks. All four songs were recorded during the Ride This Train sessions , but were probably not intended for the album. The Fable of Willie Brown is about a womanizer, while Second Honeymoon is a ballad about a man who lives apart from his wife and remembers his honeymoon. Ballad of the Harp Weaver is the adaptation of a poem written in 1923 by Edna St. Vincent Millay and is about poverty and a mysterious apparition. Cash speaks the entire text. Smiling Bill McCall is about a radio DJ who wants to kill himself because he doesn't know how his audience will react when they find out what he really looks like. Second Honeymoon and Smiling Bill McCall were released as single in 1960.

  1. "The Fable of Willie Brown" (Cash) - 1:57
  2. "Second Honeymoon" ( Autry Inman ) - 1:57
  3. "Ballad of the Harp Weaver" (Thelma Moore, Edna Millay) - 3:50
  4. "Smiling Bill McCall" (Cash) - 2:06

successes

Although Ride This Train failed to make it into the charts, it became one of Cashs' most popular and best-selling albums over time.

Some of the songs hit the single charts:

year title Single charts position
1960 Smiling Bill McCall Country 13
1960 Smiling Bill McCall pop 110
1960 Second honeymoon Country 15th
1960 Second honeymoon pop 79