The message in the lyrics of the song “Runaway Train”, composed by Soul Asylum’s lead singer Dave Pirner and released in May 1993 (featured hereunder), highlights the feelings of severe depression. It also reminds both young and old individuals that our real world is not all a bed of roses. It also, importantly, highlights that we are not fully alone. Few realise that the video and lyrics would later become more than just music industry entertainment: it would literally save lives.
Grammy Award winning American rock band “Soul Asylum”.
Tony Kaye has on many occasions recalled what inspired his video of this song “Runaway Train”. He states that he was on his way home in Los Angeles, when an idea first struck him, having observed a poster by the road side. The poster was of a milk carton with a missing kid’s face etched on the side. He decided to use the faces of missing children in his “Runaway Train” video.
The National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children sent him the photos, and Music Television (MTV) the American cable television channel aired it with a message urging people to call, if they had seen any of the faces of those featured, then declared missing.
At first, the record company worried as no children had returned, but soon one child did and then came another, followed by another and another. The first located was Elizabeth Wiles, a runaway teenager who recognized herself in the video and reached out once again to her family.
Sadly not every story ended happily as some children had died, but each time one was found, the video was again updated with a new missing child’s face added. In total, 21 of the 36 kids featured were actually located.
“Runaway Train”
Vocals:Grammy Award winning American rock band “Soul Asylum”. Lyrics:Soul Asylum‘s lead singer, Dave Pirner.
“Runaway Train”
Call you up in the middle of the night, Like a firefly without a light. You were there like a blowtorch burning, I was a key that could use a little turning, So tired that I couldn’t even sleep, So many secrets I couldn’t keep, Promised myself I wouldn’t weep, One more promise I couldn’t keep. It seems no one can help me now. I’m in too deep, There’s no way out. This time I have really lead myself astray, Runaway train never going back. Wrong way on a one-way track. Seems like I should be getting somewhere, Somehow I’m neither here nor there.
Can you help me remember how to smile? Make it somehow all seem worthwhile. How on earth did I get so jaded? Life’s mysteries seem so faded, I can go where no one else can go, I know what no one else knows. Here I am, just drowning in the rain, With a ticket for a runaway train, And everything seems cut and dry. Day and night, Earth and sky, Somehow I just don’t believe it. Runaway train never going back, Wrong way on a one-way track. Seems like I should be getting somewhere, Somehow I’m neither here nor there.
Bought a ticket for a runaway train, Like a madman laughing at the rain. A little out of touch, a little insane, It’s just easier than dealing with the pain. Runaway train never going back, Wrong way on a one-way track. Seems like I should be getting somewhere, Somehow I’m neither here nor there. Runaway train never coming back, Runaway train tearing up the track, Runaway train burning in my veins, I run away but it always seems the same.
Lyrics: American record producer and country music songwriter Allen Reynolds. Vocals: American country music singer Brenda Gail Webb, known professionally as Crystal Gayle, (Latter younger sister of the late Loretta Lynn (1932 – 2022) and known not just for her magnificent voice and beauty, but also for her long, flowing, floor-length hair.)
Wrong Road Again.
I can’t seem to learn not to love you, You get to me every time. You’re someone I just can’t say no to, And you’re so good at changing my mind. Here I go down that wrong road again, Going back where I’ve already been. Even knowing where it will end, Here I go down that wrong road again. Though I see the web that you’re weaving, You and your soft easy lines, Before I stop to think I’m believing, And I’m falling for you one more time. Here I go down that wrong road again, Going back where I’ve already been. Even knowing where it will end, Here I go down that wrong road again. Here I go down that wrong road again. Going back where I’ve already been, Even knowing where it will end, Here I go down that wrong road again. Here I go down that wrong road again. Going back where I’ve already been.
English veteran jazz singer and actress Dame Cleo Laine, Lady Dankworth (born Clementine Dinah Hitching) has sadly passed away.
Cleo Laine – Send in the Clowns
Lyrics: American composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim. Vocals: Veteran jazz singer and actress Dame Cleo Laine.
Born to a then single mother, Ms Minnie Hitching, a farmer’s daughter from Swindon. Her father, Jamaican World War I veteran, Mr Alex Campbell and her mother both married after her birth.
Lady Dankworth, who began singing aged 3, during her career was nominated for five Grammy awards and would become the first British singer to win a Grammy Award, in a jazz category, having shared the stage with such accomplished performers as Duke Ellington, Ray Charles and Frank Sinatra.
She made her first film appearance, at the age of 12 years, as an urchin in Alexander Korda’s film “The Thief of Baghdad” in 1940. With parents now divorced, she left school at 14, working as a hairdressers assistant, as a hat maker assistant and in a pawnbroker’s shop.
In 1946, Lady Dankworth married Mr George Langridge, a roof tiler, with whom she gave birth to one son, Stuart. The couple divorced some eleven years, in 1957. Her son from that marriage, predeceased Lady Dankworth in 2019, aged 72 years.
On receiving an invitation to try out with the jazz group, “The Johnny Dankworth Seven” in 1951, Clementine was offered a job at £7:00 per week.
One problem now arose; her name was too long to fit on posters, so the band put some shorter alternatives into a hat. “Cleo” and “Laine” got pulled out, so she now became newly christened as “Cleo Laine”.
Following her divorce from George Langridge, in 1958, she married, her band leader in secret, at Hampstead Registry Office, the now late English jazz composer, saxophonist, clarinettist and writer of film scores John Phillip William Dankworth, (Johnny Dankworth, 1927-2010). The couple had two children together, bassist Alec Dankworth and singer Jacqui Dankworth. They would remain married until his death and on that same day, having performed at a concert at “The Stables”, Buckinghamshire, UK, (to mark the venue’s 40th anniversary) Lady Dankworth announced Johnny’s death, on stage, at the end of her performance.
Awarded Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1979, she reluctantly became a ‘Dame’ in 1997; an honour she hesitated to accept, but finally deciding to do so “for jazz”.
Once described as “quite simply the best singer in the world,” Lady Dankworth passed away yesterday, July 24th, at her home in Wavendon, Milton Keynes, UK, at the ripe old age of 97 years.
Lyrics and Vocals: American country-folk singer, songwriter and guitarist, the late John Edward Prine, (1946-2020).
Paradise.
When I was a child my family would travel, Down to Western Kentucky, where my parents were born. And there’s a backwards old town that’s often remembered, So many times that my memories are worn.
Chorus. And Daddy, won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County? Down by the Green River where Paradise lay. Well, I’m sorry, my son, but you’re too late in asking, Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away.
Well, sometimes we’d travel right down the Green River, To the abandoned old prison, down by Airdrie Hill, Where the air smelled like snakes we’d shoot with our pistols, But empty pop bottles was all we would kill.
Repeat Chorus.
Then the coal company came with the world’s largest shovel, And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land. Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken, Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man.
Repeat Chorus.
When I die, let my ashes float down the Green River, Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester Dam. I’ll be halfway to Heaven with Paradise waitin’, Just five miles away from wherever I am.
Rain did not dampen the party in Semple’s Field in Thurles Co. Tipperary on Monday last as queues formed at the main entrances from 4:30pm, with Tipperary band Seskin Lane taking to the stage to begin the promised concert, which also featured Callini Lua, Acquiesce, Una Healy and The 2 Johnniesall topping the bill.
Things could only get better through the afternoon as Thurles native; professional singer/songwriter and TV star, the talented Ms Una Healy(Former member of the five-piece girl group The Saturdays) took to her guitar with, appropriately, Amy McDonald’s “This is the Life”, before ending with Guns N’ Roses ballad, “Sweet Child O’ Mine”.
Ms Una Healy.
Sadly two metal bars, crossing the front of the erected stage, prevented the gathered 45,000 spectators from gaining a clear vision of those performing. Perhaps for next year’s celebrations, and yes, I prophesize, there will be a next year for these All-Ireland Champions, this small oversight can be corrected.
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