Friday April 15, 2022 “Runaway Train” Soul Asylum
Tom Waits’ “Downtown Train” has suddenly gone out of control with Minneapolis singer/songwriter David Pirner and his band Soul Asylum on board with today’s “Runaway Train”.
Soul Asylum co-founder David Pirner was originally the band’s drummer when they were called Loud Fast Rules. As he stepped out front to sing and play guitar the band came to the attention of Bob Mould from one of the other Minneapolis bands Husker Du. Mould had started a record label and included two songs from the band, then known as Proud Crass Fools, at least it rhymes with their first band name.
At that moment Minneapolis was the unlikely center of the musical world with The Replacements, Husker Du, Soul Asylum, The Jayhawks, Semisonic, a guy called Prince and let’s not forget the earlier Trashmen (“Surfer Bird”).
With the release of their album titled Say What You Will, Clarence…Carl Sold the Truck (I swear that’s the real title) Soul Asylum became ‘the hardest working underground band ever’ and opened for Husker Du while playing virtually any club, any size anytime. Their breakout album would be the 1992 Grave Dancers Union which includes today’s song “Runaway Train”.
Aside from being a cool song, the video for “Runaway Train” with its ’runaway’ theme was responsible for raising the awareness of teenage runaways and missing children. The original video for "Runaway Train" featured 36 missing children…21 of them were eventually found. Now, more than 25 years after the song debuted, there continues to be a website www.runawaytrain25.com dedicated to connecting the families of more than 400,000 children who go missing every year.
Stay safe and well…and I remember the first time I saw Soul Asylum, it was on Dick Clark’s Rocking New Years Eve and three things came to mind immediately: why don’t I know this band; how does a white guy have dreads like that; and where did he get that cool plaid jacket.
Haven't done chords for awhile, sorry. With a couple of cheats this is an easy one: C Em Am G (repeats throughout) Chorus: F G C Am F Em G