Runaway Train (2002) – Kasey Chambers

Runaway Train is the tenth song to appear here so far from Australian country music star Kasey Chambers. It casts my mind back to 2002 when I first heard her music. It was a hot summer day way back then and I was driving my car through Crib Point on my way to Hastings in South East Victoria, Australia and I turned on the ABC radio (which always hosted great non-commercial music like the Go-Betweens etc) and I heard….Am I not pretty enough from her classic Australian record – Barricades and Brickwalls. Today’s song Runaway Train also resides on that record which remains one of my favourite Australian albums.

Runaway Train in similar mode to the album’s title track has a steeped blues-country sound coursing through it. It’s a striking blend of raw emotion and country prowess. Below is a ‘no-nonsense’, but still fantastic version performed at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival (Colorado) in 2003. The way Kasey just stands there almost motionless and serves this gritty number up is hypnotic. Oh, and by the way, the guy on the left playing the red guitar is her father Bill Chambers. I saw Kasey a number of times in Melbourne after the release of what would become the highest selling Australian album in 2002. She was warm, loquacious and intimate with the audience.

I’ma gonna take you down to the railway line
I’ma gonna take you down to the railway line
I’ma gonna take you where your heart won’t brake you
And the water tastes like wine
I’ma gonna take you down to the railway line

We won’t take money, we won’t take the long way round
We won’t take money, we won’t take the long way round
We won’t take money, we’ll live off the honey
When the train goes underground
We won’t take money, we won’t take the long way round

I’ll drive faster, you hold tighter
I’ll get wild, you get wilder
I’ll make thunder, you make rain
We’ll go down to the runaway train

We’ll clear that track, we’re coming on down the line
Yeah clear that track, we’re coming on down the line
Yeah clear that track, they won’t take us back
Well they can stick it where the sun don’t shine
Clear that track, we’re coming on down the line

Runaway Train is one of the singles from the album, along with Not Pretty Enough, On a Bad Day, Million Tears, and If I Were You. The music video for Runaway Train was released in 2009 and the song has also been performed live on various television programs, including the Australian variety television program “Rove [Live]” in 2001.

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“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand