Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Mark Heard: Freight Train To Nowhere

You might expect anything on a Wednesday and today is no exception. How about a rocker from one of the lesser known artists in the musical universe – the late Mark Heard. Largely ignored by the mainstream music industry, Heard released 16 LPs in his short life and served as producer on albums by better known artists that run the gamut from pop to rock to country to contemporary Christian genres.



In 1992, Heard released his final album “Satellite Sky” and was finally getting noticed by the major record labels. Unfortunately, Heard suffered a heart attack while performing in Chicago on July 4, 1992. He managed to finish his set and then was rushed to a hospital where he was under care for several weeks. Two weeks after his release, Heard went into cardiac arrest and died on August 16, 1992.



All of the tunes on “Satellite Sky” were written by Heard on his steel bodied National Silva electric mandolin. He plays the electric mando on all of the albums cuts including today’s selection “Freight Train to Nowhere.” Rock on!


Lyrics


Miss misfortune sails down the rails
with her brow to the windowpane
The scenery that she sees in her soul
doesn't match with the blur in her brain
She can trace the tricks of the tracks
like the ribs of a rattlesnake
'Til all her pastel chalk lines of fact
are erased like a schoolgirl's slate

She is reading her own tattoos
Her diary is the evening news
She can't give a damn on cue
On a freight train to nowhere

If she were not scorching the rails
with the haste of a bolting ghost
There would be no reason to fear
the death-rattle in the engine's throat
She could call for the minicams
or take up a gun or be politically correct
But that kind of justice still preys
on the ones with the stones hung
around their necks

She is reading her own tattoos
Her diary is the evening news
She can't give a damn on cue
On a freight train to nowhere

She's heard it said by the drone in her head
That the wages of spend is debt
She figures that's better than nothing
to show for the years of tears and sweat
If she could put her hand on the brake of the land
Find the treason in the diesel and the smoke
She would jar the teeth of the dull and the meek
and feed them the truth until they choke

She is reading her own tattoos
Her diary is the evening news
She can't give a damn on cue
On a freight train to nowhere

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