Song Info: 'Waiting For A Train'

Subject: Song Info: 'Waiting For A Train'
From: Crazy Eddie
Date: 22 Oct 01 - 09:35 AM

Some years ago, I bought a boxed set of three CDs titled "The Country Box", containing various original recordings by different individuals, from a discount bin.
While listening to it lately, I was struck by a song titled "Waiting For A Train". It is a hobo song, sung by Jim Reeves. It is only two verses, and the last lines are:

My pocket-book is empty,
My heart is full of pain.
I'm a thousand miles away from home,
Waitin' for a train.

Does anyone know of other versions of the song?
Although Jim Reeves' voice is one of my all time favourites, I really don't think he does this song justice. There is very little emotion, and I feel that it could be much more gutsy & bluesy.
This version also seems very short, maybe there is a third verse somewhere?
Any information much appreciated.

Subject: RE: Song Info: 'Waiting For A Train'
From: Stewie
Date: 22 Oct 01 - 10:21 AM

It is a Jimmie Rodgers song. Roger in Baltimore posted the lyrics and chords to the forum:

Click

Norm Cohen discusses the 'Waiting for a train'/'Wild and reckless hobo' song complex in his 'Long Steel Rail' [pp 355-370 in the recent new edition]. Evidently, Professor D.K. Wilgus is working on a full-scale study. Cohen lists various recordings over 5-pages of double columns!

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Song Info: 'Waiting For A Train'
From: Stewie
Date: 22 Oct 01 - 10:26 AM

Shit! That should read 'Jimmie' of course - I must be cracking up. I saw it just as I hit the 'submit' button.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Song Info: 'Waiting For A Train'
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler
Date: 22 Oct 01 - 10:29 AM

Even Homer nods...!
RtS (loved "The Long Steel Rail", BTW)

Subject: RE: Song Info: 'Waiting For A Train'
From: Metchosin
Date: 22 Oct 01 - 10:50 AM

And Gene Autry did a version click here

Subject: RE: Song Info: 'Waiting For A Train'
From: masato sakurai
Date: 22 Oct 01 - 11:05 AM

There's a short film The Singing Brakeman starring Jimmie Rogers, produced by Columbia in 1929. Of course, Jimmie sings "Waiting for a Train" in it. The video/DVD is available (Times Ain't Like They Used to Be, Yazoo 512).

~Masato

Subject: RE: Song Info: 'Waiting For A Train'
From: JenEllen
Date: 22 Oct 01 - 11:56 AM

Wylie and the Wild West do a great version as well, I think it's on their album "Total Yodel"..worth checking out.
~J

Subject: RE: Song Info: 'Waiting For A Train'
From: GUEST,jaze
Date: 22 Oct 01 - 12:33 PM

Eric Andersen does a great version of this song. I'll see if I can find which lp I have it on.

Subject: RE: Song Info: 'Waiting For A Train'
From: Fortunato
Date: 22 Oct 01 - 12:54 PM

Jim Reeves recorded this on an LP called The Country Side of Jim Reeves. The picture on the front is of Jim in a cowboy shirt with fringe; that was the only time to my knowledge he didn't appear in a sport coat and slacks.

Subject: RE: Song Info: 'Waiting For A Train'
From: Armen Tanzerian
Date: 22 Oct 01 - 05:09 PM

I had always understood that, although he had become a star with earlier Blue Yodels, Waiting for a Train was the first country mega-hit. Anybody know the rough sales figures? Did the Jimmie Rodgers version sell over a million?

It is interesting that Waiting for a Train was the most famous of a whole genre of Depression-era songs that lionized the hobo, a bum, really. Since then, the most popular music has mostly worshipped youth, money, and success.

Subject: RE: Song Info: 'Waiting For A Train'
From: Steve in Idaho
Date: 22 Oct 01 - 06:23 PM

The best re-recording of this song is done by Merle Haggard in his "Same Train - Different Time" album. The best singer of this song is myself - my dad loved it as he "rode the rods" back in the 20s. I recorded it on my album "Frios Caballeros" with my two buddies Charlie Cairns and Terry Crisp.

Now that the BS is over - I did record this on the above album, I do love to sing it, and Merle did do the best record of it that I've ever heard. The title of the song is "All Around the Water Tower."

I was Mr. Haggard's bodyguard for one of his concerts and got to stand in front of the stage and listen to him do this song.

Steve

Subject: RE: Song Info: 'Waiting For A Train'
From: GUEST,Fortunato behind the wall
Date: 22 Oct 01 - 06:31 PM

Norton1, I think you mean All around the Water Tank?

Subject: RE: Song Info: 'Waiting For A Train'
From: Steve in Idaho
Date: 22 Oct 01 - 06:43 PM

You are correct Fortunato - Tank - Steve

Subject: RE: Song Info: 'Waiting For A Train'
From: Crazy Eddie
Date: 23 Oct 01 - 12:42 AM

Thanks for the information everyone.
Now all I've got to do is figure out which version(s) to buy!

Subject: RE: Song Info: 'Waiting For A Train'
From: GUEST,jaze
Date: 23 Oct 01 - 09:53 AM

The Eric Andersen version is on "Woodstock Mountains--Music from Mud Acres" a collaboration lp with various artists from the Woodstock NY area.

Subject: RE: Song Info: 'Waiting For A Train'
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 23 Oct 01 - 07:40 PM

Hey guys--

In addition to the Gene Autry version and the lyrics posted by Roger in Baltimore, a Forum search also reveals this thread with a discussion and lyrics of "Waiting for a Train": click.

And a terrific bunch of train songs on this thread: Train Songs.

Good stuff from all the 'Catters, as usual.

Lin

Subject: RE: Song Info: 'Waiting For A Train'
From: Skipjack K8
Date: 24 Oct 01 - 05:12 AM

In the mid '80s, an outfir called Flash & the Pan had a hit in the UK with "Waiting for a Train", but it wasn't this lyric. Good tune, though, and evocative lyric.

Skipjack

Subject: RE: Song Info: 'Waiting For A Train'
From: Crazy Eddie
Date: 14 Jan 02 - 06:51 AM

Once again thanks to everyone who helped. I am now the proud owner of a Jimmie Rodgers CD. The recording quality of this song is not great, (it speeds up & slows down as though recorded from a stretched tape), but the emotion certainly comes through. The recording quality of some of the other tracks is much better, and on the whole it is a great CD for its own sake, as well as giving me a feel for some earlier country/blues type music.

Guess I'll now have to get a Merle Haggard CD and compare THAT version.

"....Blasted Mudcat....costing me MORE money on CD's...." [Exit, stage left muttering grumpliy ( or possibly gruttering mumpily, how shouild I know....]

Subject: RE: Song Info: 'Waiting For A Train'
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Feb 23 - 10:30 AM

[e-mail] to Crazy Eddie
Hi, I'm searching for another verse in that song, also. I remember my late father singing along with it. I'm pretty sure there was a part in another verse that said, "I'm going to see my Mama..." and then words to the effect that she was old and might not live long, which are eluding my memory! Good luck!

Subject: RE: Song Info: 'Waiting For A Train'
From: meself
Date: 18 Feb 23 - 11:47 AM

I was surprised to read a reference in a post from (yikes!) twenty years ago to "a whole genre of Depression-era songs that lionized the hobo ...." I never thought of any of those songs that I'm familiar with as 'lionizing' the hobo; they seem to be mainly about the misery and misfortune of hobo life - as opposed to, by way of contrast, the more commercial 'cowboy' songs, and those songs of the Folk era that, in the one instance romanticized cowboys, and in the other, the carefree drifter. However, I'm willing to be educated .... Anyone?

Subject: RE: Song Info: 'Waiting For A Train'
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 18 Feb 23 - 05:37 PM

A million years ago, I used to sing Jimmie's Hobo Bill's Last Ride". I learned it from my uncle who used to sing it in the 30s.

Subject: RE: Song Info: 'Waiting For A Train'
From: GUEST,The Og
Date: 20 Feb 23 - 02:01 PM

These chords get out-of-line when I post, but lets try...

Waiting for a Train (D) words and music by Jimmie Rodgers (1929)

1                5             1                  4                     1
All          a-round the water tank, waiting for a   train,
He put me off in       Texas, a      place I surely love,

   4                                     1                6m
A thousand miles          a-way from    home,
   Wide open spaces all a-round me,

       2                           5
       Sleeping in the    rain.
The moon and stars a-bove.

1                5             1                     4                           1
I walked up to a          brakeman, to give him a line of talk,
Nobody       seems to want me, or lend me a helping hand,

    4                              1                   2                            5
He says "If you've got money, I’ll   see that you don't walk.”
I'm on my way from    Frisco, goin’ back to Dixie.      -land.

          1             5      1                        4                         3
Well, I haven't got a nickel, not a    penny can I         show,
My    pocket book is empty, and my heart is filled with pain,

       4                            1             6m
He    said “Get off you railroad    bum,”
I'm a thousand miles a-way from home,

             2                   5          1
And he slammed the box car door. (Yodel)
Just      waiting          for a      train. (Yodel)