My Love Affair With Trains

Album review

For anyone who has followed Merle Haggard's career over the decades, train and hobo songs seem to be recurrent in his work, no matter which decade -- or century -- he recorded in. My Love Affair With Trains is one of the last two records Haggard cut for Capitol in 1975. It is also is one of Haggard's trademark concept albums, upon which he pays tribute to and laments the railroads' decline as a centerpiece of American life. Haggard has made a life in music of charting the previous and its decline in the present. In between each track, Hag introduces the next, as these songs cover different historical eras. There's the stunning title track written by Dolly Parton; Stephen H. Lemberg's corny but nonetheless compelling "Here Comes the Freedom Train"; Mark Yeary's "I Won't Give up My Train," which he re-recorded later for MCA; Dave Kirby's "So Long Train Whistle" and "Where Have All the Hobos Gone"; as well as "The Hobo." It isn't only in the songs that Haggard chronicles the romance and decline of the American railroad; the grain of his voice is a lament, full of mourning and a genuine bittersweet grief -- Haggard grew up on the rail lines as his father worked them. Interestingly enough, the tune of Haggard's to appear here is "No More Trains to Ride"; he introduces it with a short reflection on how it had become damn near impossible to hop a freight to ride coast to coast. The oddest inclusion here is the Jerry Jeff Walker/Jimmy Buffett collaboration "Railroad Lady." Hag justifies its inclusion by saying it was stories like this that helped further the legend of the great Black Iron Horse. As Haggard's records go, My Love Affair With Trains may seem a bit quaint in retrospect, but its soul and emotion don't date. There is great truth in his performances of these songs, and like virtually everything he records, he tells the truth through these songs as he sees it.
© Thom Jurek /TiVo