Long Train Running
“Long Train Running” (or “Long Train Runnin‘”) is a song composed by musician Tom Johnston. The Doobie Brothers recorded the song. The band’s 1973 album The Captain and Me included the song and it was released as a single too. In the U.S.A. it was on the top ten lists holding the number eight position stably. The tune was a result of an ad-libbed jam that the band caught onstage before they worked on it further. According to the lyricist the title to begin with was “Rosie Pig Moseley.” Johnston held the soul of the song together with a heroic three way contribution by way of harmonica, guitar and the vocals-all in his traditional style.
“Long Train Runnin“, got yet another working title in “Osborne” in 1972. 1973 saw its final release as we know it now. The song shares an identifiable similarity with Led Zeppelin’s “Trampled Under Foot” recorded under their February 1975 album Physical Grafitti which again has its roots in Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition”. These bands have not acknowledged nor denied the resemblances. Nearly twenty years later “Long Train Runnin’” became a hit in the UK twice. In 1991 the song was covered by English girl group Bananarama and in 1993 the Doobie Brothers version was remixed and hit the top ten.
Bananarama’s has a version of “Long Train Running”, which was first released under their fifth studio album Pop Life, subsequently being released as the album’s third single in the UK. The group came across the song while flipping through the collections of the producer of the Pop Life album, Youth. Their last song for the album was still to be selected and they decided to cover this song instead. The Gipsy Kings contributed the flamenco guitar pieces on Bananarama’s cover of “Long Train Running”, concealing the identity in question under the name “Alma de Noche” (”Soul of the Night”). UK singer Zoë backed the vocals. Their music video shows them in black Spanish dresses feasting under the gloomiest of conditions and singing the song on a large bed in a Spanish castle. This song has left its impression on all of us.
