Personal account of a father's abandonment, blaming it on the train that took him away.

Lyric and music twists the traditional "Midnight Special" pattern, incorporating the numbness and pain felt by an abandoned child, recounted in adulthood in an intimate and oblique way.

When Chainsaw was a very young boy, his father left his family behind to pursue his apirations to become a pro boxer in New Orleans. He ran away from home trying to find him, and while he was gone, his mother died in a mysterious car accident. I tried t

THAT TRAIN

My Daddy was a boxer
Never showed his pain
Packed his bruises in a kit bag
Took the midnight train

Well that train it don't scare no one
Ran out of town each day
Changed my life forever
Took my daddy away

My Daddy drove a taxi
Never was a hack
Caught a train out the Delta
Knew he won't come back

That train don't ask forgiveness
Don't shine no light on me
I never ask redemption
That train won't give it to me

My Daddy made me a witness
I could not testify
When I tell the truth now
It sounds just like a lie

©Steve Pasek, 2004