Like closing your eyes in a sleeper car on a westbound train & dreaming about every scene that passes as you sleep. Dreaming the stories of the unborn and the long gone, dreaming the very pulse of the unsung American heart.

13 MP3 Songs in this album (60:41) !
Related styles: FOLK: Alternative Folk, COUNTRY: Alt-Country

People who are interested in Bob Dylan Patty Griffin Ray LaMontagne should consider this download.


Details:
It was midnight in the deep cedar woods of Oregon and The Orphan Trains were lost.

âWe had only been in Oregon a few days,â The Masked Fantastic said. âDakota had quit her corporate job a month before. We had both just sold our cars on ebay and decided to make a life of songwriting. The plan was to write meaningful music for the radio-weary ears of the world. We had wind in our blood and wings in our lungs. Then we went hiking.â

The trail was completely black, but The Orphan Trains kept walking.

âOn our way into the park, five hours earlier,â Dakota Rose said, âI saw a sign that showed a huge picture of a bear. It said: Beware of Bears. Beside the bear sign was a picture of a Cougar. That one said: Beware of Large Cats. The Masked Fantastic just laughed.â

Eventually, The Orphan Trains came to a gravel road which ran between two steep and shadowy embankments. A sliver of moon haunted the sky.

âI started singing,â Dakota Rose said. âMy thought was that if we sang, the beasts would leave us alone. I had just written a song that morning about a foster child named Jenell who was lost in her life, so to speak. Well, I sang that song.â

The Masked Fantastic didnât think singing Jenell was a great idea.

âThe song is too beautiful,â he said. âI was sure it would draw the bears right over to us. Not only that, it has a very feline-friendly line, a line about how the little girl is really a big fan of jungle cats.â

The line is: "When the circus came to town, you rode on an elephant, but in your secret heart, you loved the lion bestâ¦"

âI suppose the line is a bit feline-friendly, but The Masked Fantastic didnât have a better solution. When I finished singing Jenell, he started singing On The Night You Were Born, which, I must admit, is my favorite of his songs. HOWEVER, he howls in that song. He howls like a big olâ Georgia dog. And we all know that in the dark woods there are creatures that communicate with howls.â

âI donât remember seeing one sign that said: Beware of Wolves,â The Masked Fantastic said. âNot one.â

So, The Orphan Trains compromised and sang their namesake song, a song about two orphans, Alfred and Emma, who are taken from the streets of New York City and sent west on a train, two children lost in the woods of homelessness, poverty and starvation, who, through ferocious perseverance, eventually find their way home.

âWe brought an album out of those woods,â Dakota Rose said. âAnd we made it home without encountering a single cougar or bear.â

âThey were out there,â The Masked Fantastic said. âThey laid down in their pine needle beds and let our songs wash into their ears. There was no way they could eat us. They were too busy listening. â