train

[paint it black]

Love it.

It's about death right?

Any other ideas peeps

[Ed Rhombus]

Indeed

[hallucienate]

one of my favourites.

It is very fatalistic, isn't it?

Von is very fond referencing this mode of transport, isn't he?

[pikkrong]

love it, too.
train and long train

[Izzy HaveMercy]

True.

[Andy TG]

Train - True - Indeed!

[zigeunerweisen]

Train, yeap, do

[Black Biscuit]

http://www.rockument.com/lyric_trains1.html

Little Junior Parker (with Sam Phillips, of Sun Records) had a song called Mystery Train. It was about death. Elvis Presley covered it, but changed it and made it more upbeat. Well, sort of. That may well be where the Train concept came from. But overall, yeah, good song. My fave Sisters era.

[paint it black]

http://www.rockument.com/lyric_trains1.html

Little Junior Parker (with Sam Phillips, of Sun Records) had a song called Mystery Train. It was about death. Elvis Presley covered it, but changed it and made it more upbeat. Well, sort of. That may well be where the Train concept came from. But overall, yeah, good song. My fave Sisters era.

i found a song called 'far beyond blue horizon' (i think), the link's here somewhere anyway, it was used for a film, it makes sense in context.

thx for your efforts though

[dead stars]

Love it.

It's about death right?

Any other ideas peeps

I had never thought about it. The whole thing about the Sisters not being goth forbids me from thinking of death when I listen to the songs.
This is very weird. I had the idea the song was about a love affair.
Death?
I'll have to listen to it again. From a new perspective. But basically lyrics can be about anything you want them to be. That's why they are subjective, right?


EDIT: Ermmm, actually, when I said "I had the idea the song was about a love affair" I was thinking about "Nine While Nine" (Waiting for the train).

OK, we've established a relation here.

[dead stars]

Actually, I always thought it was about life.

And I've just noticed I don't have the lyrics!

Where can I find the lyrics? If they are available.

What makes you think that, PIB?

[paint it black]

http://www.thesistersofmercy.com/lyrics/train.htm

take a last decision and the cars to move it
past information
tunnel vision and the scars to prove it
everybody got a reservation

far beyond the black horizon
beyond the things you know
everybody got a destination
everybody got a place to go

take a walk downtown to where the victims go
take your shadow to the end to the very last window

everybody got friends got shot upside and over down the line
everybody got assignations
I got mine

take a one way ticket to the main attraction
cut a hole between the ground and sky
take a railway track to a chain reaction
cross my heart and take a ride

far beyond the black horizon
beyond the things you know
everybody got a destination
everybody got a place to go

[paint it black]

everybody got a reservation

kinda feeling

[spartacus mills]

A dearly departed friend of mine met Eldritch backstage at a German gig circa 1991.
Our man started babbling about 'gak' and told my friend that if she wanted some to: "take a walk downtown to where the victims go
take your shadow to the end to the very last window".

[Dark]

Of course, the lyrics are a little different in Long Train.
Just a little.

And there are more of them.

[dead stars]

http://www.thesistersofmercy.com/lyrics/train.htm

Thank you. I had completely forgotten about that source.

Once someone told me Train reminded him of Jack the Ripper.
But I still think it's about life. Or better. About walking through life "mercilessly", or the mercilessness of the uncertainty in life which can sound as scary as death. "beyond the things you know" We don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. Death is not the only uncertain merciless thing there is. Life is more. Therefore, my personal interpretation that it is about life in general.
But I agree it sounds like the line of thought of a hit man, a hired killer, on a basic analysis.

[distanceovertime]

i never thought this song was about death i always think it is about a high trip on drugs probably speed

"far beyond the black horizon
beyond the things you know
everybody got a destination
everybody got a place to go"

far beyond your problems everybody got drugs to hide out of them and burn high.

take a one way ticket to the main attraction (¿sniff?)
"cut a hole between the ground and sky
take a railway track to a chain reaction
cross my heart and take a ride"

this three lines can be understand in the way of the effect of drugs on you and heard the sound of the music, in the studio version of train the sound of guitars get low and high, low and high, like the effect of a drug and then eldritch shout like an ampethamine motherfucker guy.

But well probably im reading too far into the lyrics.

[distanceovertime]

Also say that in the bootleg called "The Darks were in Milan" from i think 1985 the last song of the concert is Train and Eldritch sing Speed instead of Train all the way along the song.

[dead stars]

i never thought this song was about death i always think it is about a high trip on drugs probably speed

That makes a lot of sense too.

[eastmidswhizzkid]

it struck me recently that this song is quite possibly about jacking-up (intraveinously injecting) drugs as the last desperate resort of addiction.

the train metaphor is an established one: "mainlining" is slang for injecting any drug (that's why sister ray is looking for his mainline) and "trainspotting" (as in the film) is searching for a useable vein to inject into."track-marks" are a euphemism for the scars caused by this practice. hence:

"take a last decision and the cars to move it
past information
tunnel vision and the scars to prove it
everybody got a reservation"

the "reservation" in this case perhaps being a double meaning: you have reservations about doing it but in the end thats where you're going to end up.

"far beyond the black horizon
beyond the things you know
everybody got a destination
everybody got a place to go"

a reference to the unknown in life (and where it may unexpectedly take you) and the unknown that lies beyond your inevitable death?

"take a walk downtown to where the victims go
take your shadow to the end to the very last window"

the shadow of your former self and the last resort of injecting and/or death is the last window?

"everybody got friends got shot upside and over down the line
everybody got assignations
I got mine"

shot -as in "shooting-up", more slang for injecting.

"take a one way ticket to the main attraction
cut a hole between the ground and sky
take a railway track to a chain reaction
cross my heart and take a ride "

once you've started injecting -the "main" attraction- you're fucked and there's no going back.the railway track is the same metaphor as before and "cross my heart" is the physical action of injecting, with the arms making a cross shape -this is also where another slang word for mainling , comes from: "fix" as in "crucifix".

[nick the stripper]

tunnel vision and the scars to prove it

We could take ‘tunnel vision’ as a metaphor for a lack of foresight into the long-term problems of IV-ing, and the ‘scars to prove it’ to be track marks.

[eastmidswhizzkid]

tunnel vision and the scars to prove it

We could take ‘tunnel vision’ as a metaphor for a lack of foresight into the long-term problems of IV-ing, and the ‘scars to prove it’ to be track marks.

exactly!hello josh!

[nick the stripper]

tunnel vision and the scars to prove it

We could take ‘tunnel vision’ as a metaphor for a lack of foresight into the long-term problems of IV-ing, and the ‘scars to prove it’ to be track marks.

exactly!hello josh!

Hello, Lee. Glad your back.

[markfiend]

Thread Necro:

Far beyond the black horizon

Compare:

Far beyond the pale horizon

We all know AE's tendency to "borrow" bits of lyrics from here, there, everywhere; I think this is a more likely source than PiB's Blue Horizon?

[n'Emolicia]

I can't know what all the metaphors reference,
but, I'm certain he was stuck waiting behind a train
while he poetically banged out random thoughts rumbling
through his head.

I've been there.