Friday Night Jukebox, CCXIX--Joshua James: Crash This Train

One of the perks of reading liberal blogs is that, surprisingly enough, liberals often have a certain fondness for rock and roll music and aren't afraid to spice up their blogs with top ten Labor Day songs, or top songs about going to school, or best songs about summer, or even just a song that ties in neatly to the post at hand.  I've found quite a few songs and artists from such lists...much like this week's tune, found thanks to Dennis Hartley, who usually writes the Saturday night movie reviews for Digby's Hullabaloo, but on occasion likes to amaze with his rock and roll remembrances.

Joshua Fred James hails from Lincoln, Nebraska and due to a rather short bio in Wikipedia, this week's career recap will be mercifully short.  James has his own label in the great state of Utah (great only because my oldest son and his wife live there), and hasn't come any closer to having an album or single on the charts or a Grammy Award than I have, and I'm not a recording artist (though I'm sure my legion of fans is breathlessly awaiting my first release...or not). Over the course of his relatively short career (2003-Present), James has released 6 LPs, 5 EPs, and one single only release.  He's gotten some nice write-ups from Variety and NPR, and his album The Sun Is Always Brighter reached #1 on the iTunes Folk Album list in 2007.  James has also been the opening act for John Mayer, David Gray, Ani DiFranco, and Third Eye Blind.  And while he's not had much in the way of commercial success, he's had enough to make a living at playing music...and that's gotta be a hell of a lot better than selling groceries.

"Crash This Train" was released in 2008 on an EP  cleverly titled Crash This Train/The Garden.  Near as I can tell, it's a digital only release, and isn't even listed on his discography on his own web site.  Needless to say, no bullets on Billboard this week....

"Crash This Train" carries on the proud tradition (at least to old fart folkies like me) of Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Peter, Paul, and Mary, and even Bob Dylan (though he stopped giving a shit long ago) of folk protest anthems.  James sings of the unjust Iraq war, of Presidents sending children off to die, and of a world that should be a lot more fair for regular folks, and he's asking God to put an end to all of the injustice.  There's a nice juxtaposition between an acoustic guitar and a plaintive piano, an ending with a crescendo (emaycee fave alert), but in the end it's James' vocals which carry the tune and take it to another level.  James' mournful rasp is offset by a weary hopefulness as he sings his prayer--and the imagery of ending the world's ills via a crashing train is one of those magic touches that make a great song.  All in all, "Crash This Train" is another in a long line of folk gems that add to its storied history.

Lyric Sheet:  "'Cause if it dies in cold, when the clouds start to roll/Is it then that your soul starts to bleed?"

Enjoy:

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee