"Mystery Train" is a song recorded by American blues musician Junior Parker in 1953. Considered a blues standard, Parker, billed as "Little Junior's Blue Flames", recorded the song for producer/Sun Records owner Sam Phillips and it was released on the Sun label. The song was written by Junior Parker (aka Herman Parker), with a credit later given to Phillips.
One commentator noted "One of the mysteries about 'Mystery Train' was where the title came from; it was mentioned nowhere in the song". The song uses lyrics similar to those found in the traditional American folk music group Carter Family's "Worried Man Blues", itself based on an old Celtic ballad, and their biggest selling record of 1930:
- The train arrived sixteen coaches long
- The train arrived sixteen coaches long
- The girl I love is on that train and gone
Parker's lyrics include:
- Train I ride sixteen coaches long
- Train I ride sixteen coaches long
- Well, that long black train carries my baby home
"Mystery Train" was the follow-up single to Junior Parker's 1953 number five Billboard R&B chart release "Feelin' Good" (Sun 187). Accompanying Parker (vocal) is his backup band the "Blue Flames", whose members at the time are believed to include: Floyd Murphy (guitar); William Johnson (piano); Kenneth Banks (bass); John Bowers (drums); and Raymond Hill (tenor sax).
Read more about Mystery Train: Elvis Presley Version, The Band Version, Other Recordings
Famous quotes containing the words mystery and/or train:
“The sad, the lonely, the insatiable,
To these Old Night shall all her mystery tell;
God’s bell has claimed them by the little cry
Of their sad hearts, that may not live nor die.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“We teach boys to be such men as we are. We do not teach them to aspire to be all they can. We do not give them a training as if we believed in their noble nature. We scarce educate their bodies. We do not train the eye and the hand. We exercise their understandings to the apprehension and comparison of some facts, to a skill in numbers, in words; we aim to make accountants, attorneys, engineers; but not to make able, earnest, great- hearted men.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)