Southbound Train

Oh, and I guess they'll say I've grown
I know more than I wanted to know
I've said more than I wanted to say

I'm headed home
Yeah but I'm not so sure
That home is a place
You can still get to by train

So I'm looking out the window
And I'm drifting off to sleep
With my face pressed up against the pane
With the rhythm of my heart
And the ringing in my ears
It's the rhythm of the southbound train

Oh, well the wind starts to look like her hair
And the clouds in her bright blue eyes
As the sea and the shore fall and rise
Like her breast as she breathes by my side

And the moon is her lips as the sun
Is headed on down to the sea
Like her head as she lays down on me
Until we reach ocean side

Over and over I hear the same refrain
It's the rhythm of my heart
And my sleepy girl's breathing
It's the rhythm of my southbound train

Oh, I suppose they'll say I should've known
Or maybe I'm just feeling old
Like a lawyer with no one to blame

I'm headed home
Yeah but I'm not so sure
Home is a place that'll ever be the same

So we're picking up our things
And we head out in the cold
And your eyes are where you carry the pain
When I hear the whistle weeping
It's crying to the sky
It's the rhythm of the southbound train
It's the rhythm of my southbound train


This afternoon I walked into Tours to go to the library, and this song came on my mp3 player. It's a track from Jon Foreman's EP 'Fall' (a series which also includes 'Winter', 'Spring' and 'Summer', all well worth a listen) and seemed to fit with the beautiful autumn afternoon - a clear blue sky, orange light, turning trees and just-warm air. It contains one of my favourite song lines: 'I'm not so sure/That home is a place/You can still get to by train'. It sums up how I feel in life as I travel to new places and meet new people and realise that it's OK to feel at home everywhere and nowhere. My home is not here, it's still to come. And I think Foreman's saying the same thing, but he's also talking about a person being his home too. This is something I've definitely experienced; with close friends and loved ones it doesn't matter where you are or what you're doing, you can feel at home.

The words are beautiful and the music is too, with the wonderful use of strings and harmonica and the throbbing train-like motion of the cello bass complementing the words. It's a love song but it's also a song about life, experience, change and going back.