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Lyr Add: Poison Train (Michael O'Rourke)

04 Mar 00 - 08:52 PM (#189575)
Subject: ADD: The poison train ^^
From: Stewie

THE POISON TRAIN
(Michael O'Rourke)

This old town has had its day
All the people moved away
And the houses standing empty
In the dry and the dusty day
No one cares for this old town
Now the money's not around
And the railway lines are rusty
And the station's falling down

Chorus:
There's a light down the line
Let it shine, shine, let it shine
There's a camp down the way
All the fettlers will be coming home today

When the railway opened here
All the gutters flowed with beer
And the people stood beside the line
To watch and wave and cheer
All the speeches that were made
When the bosses smiled and said
'The good times are just beginning
Follow us and you'll go ahead'

Chorus

Well, they built the street so wide
It would be a thing of pride
To walk across it drunk
Or throw a stone to the other side
And the buildings grew so tall
You would tremble at the fall
But they've just dried out
And you would never know
There was anyone there at all

Chorus

I still hear the tall man say
To the children at their play
'You'd better go home early
And you'd better stay away
Stay away from the line
Can't you hear the railway humming
The grass has grown too tall
And the poison train is coming

Chorus

You feel sorry for the grass
All it did was grow too fast
All the weapons used against it
It was never made to last
And the man and his offsider
Are all dressed in black
As the poison train goes through the town
And blisters all the track

Chorus

Well, it never lasted long
Half the town was packed and gone
And everybody was afraid
To be left there alone
All the people stayed away
And there was no celebration
Nobody made a speech the day
They closed the railway station

Chorus

Published by Greenhouse Publications. Source: Roy Bailey 'New Directions in the Old' Fuse CFCD 402. Recorded by 'Mike O'Rourke on 'Flying Pieman' 1980.
PS.

The image of the 'Poison Train' is used by O'Rourke to describe the decay of outback towns that grew too quicly. The fast-growing grass around the railway tracks has to be burnt back.
^^

04 Mar 00 - 09:22 PM (#189584)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Poison train
From: Oversoul

Thanks for the up-beat ditty! I feel like jumping in a boiling pit of sewage. Better yet, you and the bloke who wrote that hold hands and make a flying leap, thanks for the lovely images!

05 Mar 00 - 12:33 AM (#189684)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Poison train
From: Stewie

Davecoje

What the hell are you on about - or on?

--Stewie.

05 Mar 00 - 12:56 AM (#189702)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Poison train
From: Rick Fielding

Hi Stewie. Good song. Do you have any information on Mike O'Rourke? His name has come up (here in Toronto) a couple of times, and I'd like to check out his other stuff.

Hope you're enjoying the refreshing warmth and wit of newcomer Davecoje as much as I am!!

Rick

05 Mar 00 - 01:15 AM (#189712)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Poison train
From: Stewie

Hi Rick,

I don't know much about him. I got a tape of a few good songs from Tony. Send a personal message to 'Tony in Darwin' and I'm sure he will be able to help you out with information etc. O'Rourke is a personal friend of his.

I'd have to say that Davecoje is different, to say the least.

--Stewie.

05 Mar 00 - 04:22 AM (#189752)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Poison train
From: Bob Bolton

G'day Stewie and Rick,

The Poison Train is in Songs of Australian Working Life, Thérèse Radic, Greenhouse Publications, 1989. She says of Mike O'Rourke:

"... an important singer and songwriter of the Australian Folk Revival. O'Rourke was brought up on the Atherton Tableland, which seems to have provided the central image of this song. The train he refers to is the defoliant special used in tropis northern Queensland to keep the tracks free of weeds. O'Rourke equates it with the ruthlessness of economic forces against which the rural community feels powerless."

Regards,

Bob Bolton

05 Mar 00 - 05:13 AM (#189758)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Poison train
From: Stewie

Bob, thanks for that.

--Stewie.

05 Mar 00 - 08:02 AM (#189775)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Poison train
From: Callie

There's an excellent version of the song by The Fagans on "Kitchen Dance" --Callie

05 Mar 00 - 08:51 AM (#189784)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Poison train
From: Chris/Darwin

Heard the Fagans sing this at Woodford 99, with Nancy Kerr playing fantastic fiddle. Hope they record it again with Nancy.

Regards
Chris

26 May 13 - 03:35 AM (#3519312)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Poison Train (Michael O'Rourke)
From: GUEST,Anne

I knew Michael O'Rourke personally way back when. Pleased to see his songs living on even though Michael has long since passed away.

26 May 13 - 06:53 AM (#3519336)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Poison Train (Michael O'Rourke)
From: Sandra in Sydney

Poison Train is a very popular song in Sydney singing sessions & further afield

Jason & Chloe Roweth singing 'Poison Train'

sandra

26 May 13 - 12:02 PM (#3519379)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Poison Train (Michael O'Rourke)
From: GUEST,SqueezeMe

"Well, they built the street so wide
It would be a thing of pride
To walk across it drunk
Or throw a stone to the other side"

Just love those particular lines; so beautifully descriptive. Henry would have been proud....

21 Apr 18 - 05:08 AM (#3918900)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Poison Train (Michael O'Rourke)
From: GUEST

Michael played in the band 'Flying Pieman' - we played several of his songs -
Poison Train, No Man's a Stranger, Sweet Necessity & T.I.Woman. He was a
quirky man - funny but quiet.
A recent recording by Ken McMaster includes at least one of his songs - the
wonderful 'Good time coming'

21 Apr 18 - 05:33 AM (#3918907)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Poison Train (Michael O'Rourke)
From: Jack Campin

Meanwhile in Alabama...

NYC sewage train stuck for two months

21 Apr 18 - 11:07 AM (#3918969)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Poison Train (Michael O'Rourke)
From: Sandra in Sydney

phew!

I hadn't realised Michael O'Rourke also wrote No Man's A Stranger & T.I. Woman

28 Aug 19 - 04:04 AM (#4006149)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Poison Train (Michael O'Rourke)
From: GUEST,John Ross

I also played in 'Flying Pieman' with Michael. It is often said amongst friends, that though he is now dead, he will not lie down.

Some of his finest lines are these, from 'No Man is a Stranger', also known as 'Sing Us a Song Boys':

"I am the gun beaten out of the shovel,
I am the riders out in the night,
I am the dingo you'll hear in the bush
And I never let go when I bite."

He turned up to a practice one time with a rewritten version with a whole lot of cliches, because he got it in his head that the original was a bit edgy. "Where is the flag of the diggers' brigade; Where are the riders, out in the night?" I credit myself with talking him out of it!

'No Man is a Stranger' was a song he wrote as part of a musical he was working on, never completed, which involved a couple of latter-day bushrangers who terrorised the bush, Bonnie-and-Clyde style, in an old Holden.

28 Aug 19 - 06:29 AM (#4006165)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Poison Train (Michael O'Rourke)
From: Andrez

Michael was an important part of the Melbourne folk scene in the day. He had a wicked sense of humour and was one of the 'lads' around the traps, folk clubs, pubs and festivals. If anyone would like to hear some of his work it is accessible through the National Library of Australia at this link:

https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Search/Home?lookfor=author:%22O%27Rourke%2C%20Michael%22&iknowwhatimean=1

I last saw him in Brisbane not long before he passed from us. I feel privileged to be able to have called him a friend. RIP Michael.

Cheers,

Andrez

02 Oct 19 - 10:52 AM (#4011543)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Poison Train (Michael O'Rourke)
From: GUEST,John Ross

As Michael sang Poison Train, the rhyme was implied, not stated, in the rather different last verse. A bit more genius:

I         vi
"Well, it never lasted long
         IV
Half the town was packed and gone
    II
And everybody was afraid
   V
To be left there alone

All the people stayed away
      IV
There was no celebration
      vi
And nobody made a speech the day that
IV                   I
They closed down the railway"

          V
There's a light... etc...

02 Oct 19 - 11:00 AM (#4011545)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Poison Train (Michael O'Rourke)
From: GUEST,John Ross

Chord suggestions will only really make sense if you copy and paste and format with a fixed-pitch font. Unfortunately, the Mudcat editor is fixed pitch, but when the post is made, it goes into Times.