This Train: A Song History

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"This Train" is a traditional religious song whose author is unknown; the Traditional Ballad Index describes it as a song about a train bound for glory that carries only the holy and refuses sinners such as gamblers, and places it in the American Southeast.[1] The earliest date the Index gives for it is a 1922 recording.[1] That record was made in October 1922 by the Florida Normal and Industrial Institute Quartette, an unaccompanied male vocal group, who cut it for OKeh as "Dis Train," issued on OKeh 40010.[2] Several other vocal groups recorded it in the late 1920s and early 1930s, sometimes under the fuller title "This Train Is Bound for Glory."[1]

Single railroad track curving away through a cleared forest cutting

James Fitzallen Ryder, Atlantic and Great Western Railway (untitled), albumen print, 1862. An American railroad line cut through the forest in 1862, shown for the song's train bound for glory; the photograph has no connection to the song.

Scholars recognize more than one shape for the song: in Long Steel Rail, Cohen separates a "This Train" form from a "Same Train" form and argues that the "Same Train" type is the older, a view the Ballad Index's editor shares.[1] A version titled "This Same Train" appears in Minstrel of the Appalachians, the book on Bascom Lamar Lunsford.[1] The Lomaxes printed a text in American Ballads and Folk Songs, crediting a field recording of Walter McDonald, though the Index points out that the printed words do not match that recording and suggests the Lomax text probably lies behind most popular folk versions.[1] Lulu Belle and Scotty recorded it for OKeh in 1939.[1] That same year Decca issued Sister Rosetta Tharpe's "This Train," recorded on January 10, 1939, on Decca 2558.[3]

Under its longer title, "This Train Is Bound For Glory," the song is part of Mike Anderson's Sunday Songs For Kids, a Fingers Of Steel collection of Christian songs for children written in standard notation, with chords so the songs can be played on dulcimer or any other instrument that plays chords.[4]

Our books that contain the song "This Train"

Sources

  1. The Traditional Ballad Index: "This Train".
  2. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "OKeh 40010 (10-in. double-faced)".
  3. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Decca 2558 (10-in. double-faced)".
  4. Fingers Of Steel: "Mike Anderson, Sunday Songs For Kids".
  5. Image: James Fitzallen Ryder, Atlantic and Great Western Railway (untitled), albumen print, 1862. The Cleveland Museum of Art.

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