Roll of the Dice: Leavin’ Train

For any other artist, “Leavin’ Train” might earn a more favorable review.

I mean, it’s not like it’s a bad song.

Musically, it’s built around a great guitar riff, riding a chugging chassis that sounds for all the world like a barreling train; lyrically, it has a great central metaphor–the notion that one’s eyes might reveal one’s emotional departure long before their physical one is brilliant.

The problem with “Leavin’ Train” is that its songwriter isn’t any other artist, and there’s nothing in this song that Bruce hasn’t done better elsewhere in his catalog.

Want a hard-drivin’ train song with a killer guitar solo? Look to “Burnin’ Train.” (The apostrophe is apparently a required ingredient in this micro-genre.)

Want a song that will wrench your heart and fill your soul with dread over the surety of impending but unconfirmed betrayal? Seek out “Brilliant Disguise.”

In fact, “Leavin’ Train” is basically a re-write of “Brilliant Disguise,” but with less nuance and artfulness.

Which is odd, considering that “Brilliant Disguise was only a couple of years old when Bruce recorded “Leavin’ Train” in early 1990. (I suspect the latter song had its genesis during the Tunnel of Love period, though.) Why take another swing (and so soon) after hitting a home run on the first pitch?

It’s not just the thematic similarity–there are lyrical echoes of “Brilliant Disguise” throughout “Leavin’ Train” starting from the very first lines.

Baby when I ask you if everything is alright
You whisper “Don’t worry” and you shut out the light
Well now black is black in this bed we’re laying
Yeah and I wanna believe the words yeah that your lips are saying

Compare the first couplet above with this key passage in “Brilliant Disguise”:

Now look at me baby, struggling to do everything right
And then it all falls apart oh when out go the lights

See what I mean? And it continues from there. Compare the third line with:

Tonight our bed is cold, I’m lost in the darkness of our love

Now I will admit that the notion of a departing train is much more specific and evocative metaphor than a generic disguise (however brilliant), but Bruce fumbles the follow-through:

Whoa but your eyes look like a leavin’ train
Yeah they keep on dragging me down
Your eyes look like a leavin’ train
They keep on draggin’
They keep on draggin’
They keep on draggin’ me down

Since when do trains drag down? I’m not sure what exactly I would have used here instead (I’m no songwriter), but “leavin’ train” and “draggin’ down” don’t really work together. One implies abandonment and the other imprisonment.

I suppose we could just ignore the train metaphor altogether and simply focus on the narrator being dragged down by his lover’s eyes. That conceit works nicely. So much so, in fact, that Bruce had a Top Ten hit with it in 1985:

Well lately when I look into your eyes
I’m going down, down, down, down

“Leavin’ Train” adds nothing original to Bruce’s catalog.  The second verse again retreads “Brilliant Disguise” territory:

Well I did anything just to try to get close to you
I took it step by step yeah like a man’s supposed to
Tell me now, is this my, baby, is this my contrition
To have the love that I longed for fill me with suspicion

And the last verse is lackluster even without comparison:

So now it’s tellin’ time, oh my little sister
Now can I believe the words, the words of love you whisper
Is my train in vain, oh has my soul gone to waste
Am I just a victim of, a victim of my lost faith

Train in vain?  When did the train become the narrator’s? And what’s the point of establishing a secondary use of the metaphor but doing absolutely nothing with it besides an easy internal rhyme? And why reach for a lone internal rhyme but go lazy on the external ones? It almost sounds like Bruce just lost interest in the song at this point.

Most importantly, though, the last five lines of “Leavin’ Train'” cannot hold a candle to the devastating…

God have mercy on the man who doubts what he’s sure of

…even though they’re conveying the exact same thing.

So yeah, Bruce made a wise move relegating “Leavin’ Train” to outtake status (at least until he released it in 1998 on Tracks), of interest only to ZZ Top fans who are curious to hear what that band’s material might sound like in Bruce’s hands.

“Leavin’ Train” is a song I never would have expected Bruce  to break out in concert, but surprisingly he did: twice in fact, with Joe Grushecky and The Houserockers on back-to-back nights in Pittsburgh in the spring of 2014.

Both performances were a little rough at times, but both were redeemed by smoking guitar jams, particularly on Night Two.

Will we ever hear from “Leavin’ Train” again?

I suspect not. That particular train has left the station, and with luck there’s a burnin’ one on the way.

Leavin’ Train
Recorded: February 27, 1990
Released: Tracks (1998)
First performed: May 22, 2014 (Pittsburgh, PA)
Last performed: May 23, 2014 (Pittsburgh, PA)

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