Train Song(s)

My last extended trip to Europe was back in 2011. Taking three weeks to visit Paris, the Netherlands, and Ireland seemed extravagant at the time (and it really was). I retain a physically tangible memory of the landscape slipping past train windows while I listened to a mix of new-to-me music recommended by friends alongside longtime road-trip favorites. A November trip through misty-gray countrysides, it was a perfectly melancholic atmosphere, and I still associate the songs and artists I heard for the first time on that trip with that sense of discovery and motion. (One in particular stands out: “All Will Be Well,” a Gabe Dixon Band song that I’d first heard on Parks & Recreation the night before I left, which became a kind of solitude-anthem on that trip.)

I’m gearing up for another round of this (but so much more so) as I head into a trip that sees me skipping through a wide swath of Europe with dozens of train rides stitching it all together. So after the jump, in no particular order and with many omissions, are twenty travel songs that I know are going on my list, with many yet to come (and hopefully many more to be discovered). More will come from a superbflood of suggestions I got by opening up the question to Facebook, but these are my standard-bearers for this type a travel.

It’s a pretty mellow mix – when I’m driving I like an amped-up mix, but on a train I tend to like the quieter, more contemplative stuff. At least I think I do? I guess I have some time to figure that out???



(Song titles open in a new window, or just let the Youtube playlist go once you've started it!)

1. Train Song (Tom Waits)
2. Sí, Paloma (Sun Kil Moon)
3. Cast Your Fate to the Wind (Vince Guaraldi)
4. Not a Robot, But a Ghost (Andrew Bird)
5. Lump Sum (Bon Iver)
6. Let Me Tell You About My Boat(Mark Mothersbaugh)
7. Eveningland (Hem – The whole album is perfect for train trips)
8. Bloodbuzz Ohio (The National)
9. No Man’s Land (Sufjan Stevens)
10. How Loud Your Heart Gets (Lucius)
11. First Few Desperate Hours (Mountain Goats)
12. Poor Places (Wilco)
13. Nattöppet (Detektivbyrån)
14. Killer Crane (TV on the Radio)
15. Jacksonville Skyline (Whiskeytown)
16. Javelin (Michael Torke)
17. The Dharma at Big Sur (John Adams)
18. Silent Way (Milo Greene)
19. Graceland (Paul Simon, but check out the Tallest Man On Earth cover, it’s GREAT)
20. Blue Skies (Noah and the Whale)

And a bonus entry, yet another last-minute discovery from 2011, which played through most of my Parisian adventures…

    21. La Fée(Zaz)