Runaway Train – Soul Asylum

Runaway Train was the song that took Soul Asylum from being a Minneapolis indie band with a devoted following to an MTV staple with a national hit – and almost killed them in the process.

Superficially Runaway Train is an acoustic guitar based rock ballad that has as much in common with Kiss’s Hard Luck Woman or The Faces Maggie May as it does with the previous output from the former punk rock quartet. It builds from a strummed beginning and eventually with the overlay of strings becomes an almost perfect FM radio ballad.

But was it so out of character?

Dave Pirner had always been a masterful wordsmith and on this song he still manages to tell his story using some clever phrases and some raw edges. It’s doesn’t come across as a deliberate attempt to sell Soul Asylum’s soul. His voice still aches, the guitars still jangle like exposed nerve ends and the subject matter isn’t so different from what he had dealt with previously.

In fact had the song not been a hit would it have still been seen as a commercial sell-out? I doubt it.

Sure Runaway Train isn’t the best song in the Soul Asylum catalogue, in fact its not even in the best half dozen songs on the Grave Dancers Union album, but it is a solid member of a great collection of songs.

It’s not their fault or the songs fault that it became so damn popular!