Alejandro Escovedo: Wave[purchase]
This isn't a traditional train song. There aren't any images of riding the rails or any references to hearing the whistle blow. In fact, I might not even recognize this as a train song unless I had read the liner notes to a live album released by Alejandro's fan club in 2004. Here is what Alejandro has to say about the song...
"My father was born in Saltillo, Mexico in 1907. When he was a young boy, his parents left him to be raised by his grandparents while they went to look for work in South Texas. Saltillo at this time was nothing more than a railroad junction and my father and his grandmother would spend hours watching the trains come in and out of this small town. They would make up stories about the people on the trains as if they knew where they were headed or where they were coming from, as if they knew them and they shared the same journey. When my father reached the age of twelve, his sixteen year old cousin told him if they hopped this train headed north, they would be able to find my father's parents in Texas. My father, without telling his grandmother, boarded this train headed north. The story goes that his grandmother was left waving unbeknownst to her that her grandson was on this train and whom she was never to see again."
This version of the song comes from Alejandro's 2001 release A Man Under the Influence.