Ten Favorite Songs About Trains: Folsom Prison Blues (#1)

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And so another series pulls into the train depot on its final stop. I've been looking at my ten favorite songs that are about trains explicitly, or where trains play a vital role in the song, without the word train actually being in the title. I'll post my favorite song with the word "train" later. Meanwhile, here's the most obvious champion of this countdown. #1: Folsom Prison Blues - Johnny Cash Anyone surprised? Anyone at all?? This song was a hit twice. Back in 1955, in his early Sun days, Johnny Cash recorded this song about a convicted murderer who is tormented by the sound of freedom just outside the prison (California's Folsom): the train that allows everyone outside to "keep a-movin', and that's what tortures me." Then, 13 years later, Cash's live version, recorded at the eponymous prison, was released by Columbia Records as a single. It has easily remained one of Cash's most popular songs from its first release up until this day. The iconic Luther Perkins guitar riff that opened the song was the opening to Cash's ABC variety series (and frequently Homer and Jethro would spoof it in the opening skit where, regardless of what they were doing, they would "hear that train a-comin'" and it would run over them in classic Road Runner and Coyote slapstick style). Oh, and Johnny plagiarized it. In the 70s he paid over $75,000 to Gordon Jenkins after it was determined that "Folsom Prison Blues" wouldn't have existed without Jenkins' "Crescent City Blues." Stolen, or "heavily borrowed" (e.g., George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord"). Either way, this is a classic song. Thanks for reading. Folsom Prison Blues Written by Johnny Cash Based on "Crescent City Blues" by Gordon Jenkins Recorded by Johnny Cash From Johnny Cash and His Hot Blue Guitar, 1955 Also from Live at Folsom Prison, 1968 And no, Johnny Cash was never incarcerated in a prison: