Blue Raincoat and drug addiction ???

[Tchocolatl]

(...) a song that uses trains as a metaphor for longing, going places, the transitory nature of life and relationships, (...)

I like your definition, Alexandralaughing.

I'm sorry Abter1. I also hope there is help in view for all of you.

What I mean by a train song is a song having a train for main topic and|or imitating a sound of a train. That may be a whistle, the particular rythm of a train on the railway, etc. This style came into fashion when the first railroads were built.

Taking a trip, you know what that meant back in the 70'? Version number 1 is like taking the last trip with Janis. Hear the sound of a train in the song. Elastic and smooth and hallucinogene. This guy is a genius.

Riding the H-train means being under the influence of heroin. Racing the midnight train, I don't know exactly, but it seems all of a voyage.

[Tchocolatl]

Hum.

The "midnight train" is surely death

- Stephen Scobie

http://canlit.ca/pdfs/articles/canlit15 ... cobie).pdf

[Abter1]

T; thanks. That helps a lot. Learn something every day. Also gives me a good excuse to listen to #1 again today. Not that I needed an excuse of course

I very much enjoyed the Stephen Scobie essay "Riding the Midnight Train" you gave us a link to. The quote you provided from the article is bang on. The whole paragraph the quote comes from (which discusses #1) is great too.

"Again Cohen refers to the redemptive power of song: "Shining your eyes in / my darkest corner." But for Janis Joplin, as for Leonard Cohen, performance
is also a desperate affair. The "midnight train" is surely death. Janis Joplin, for the few brief glorious years of her career, raced with it, against it, ahead
of it; but finally, this is a race which a singer must lose. You catch the train, or the train catches you."

[Tchocolatl]

My pleasure.

I also share what Scobie seems to think about the song(s) : Cohen deals with the trauma of Janis Joplin's death. Through different steps experienced in mourning.

Who said that genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration? So true.

[Annever]

we should never use music for promoting bad thing like drug addiction