STORIES

Tornadoes (or too many goddamn train songs) by Patterson Hood

Adam’s House Cat would frequently go months without a gig. Certainly not for a lack of wanting to play, hell, we loved to play more than most. We practiced all the time. Chuck had to drive 75 miles each way to practice through hellish traffic, and still we frequently (at least in those early days) practiced three times a week. We wrote prolifically and had well over 150 (somewhat) original songs.

Once we decided to write a concept album (remember, this was the mid eighties, just to show how out of touch with the trends and times we were). An album of train songs. I always loved train songs. My granddad was a hobo back in the 1930’s. He was twelve years old at the height of the depression and he split for two years. He lived in box cars and saw the whole country at appoint in time that will never exist again. At fourteen he came back home and no one ever asked him where he’d been or even acknowledged that he had ever left. Two of my earliest memories were of Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” and a lullaby that my grandmother (Sissy) used to sing to me as I went to sleep. “One night it was dark and was storming, when along came a tramp in the rain He was making his way to some station, to catch a long distance train.........”

We wrote eleven train songs, each using the (admittedly overused) train symbolism for something else. As a band we were eclectic as hell so each song was stylistically different from the others. We four-tracked the thing and for a short time sold cassettes of it at gigs.

Around this time, we had a song that appeared on a nationally distributed compilation. We got some national and regional press and went out and played more than we ever had. In the fall of 88 we played forty shows around the southeast and bad luck met us at every one. (In retrospect, considering what morons we were, we actually got off fairly easy, but at the time we were generally freaked out and pissed). Early on we called it The Nightmare Tour. During this period, Mike’s father died of cancer, one night we had over $1500.00 worth of equipment stolen out of the back of our truck. (We toured in a 66 Ford pickup). One night in Tuscaloosa I had my wallet lifted with our entire door + my day job payday (two weeks worth). We were to end the tour with a homecoming show in Florence AL. (Florence is one of the quad-cities that makes up the Muscle Shoals area in northwest Alabama. I lived there for twenty eight years). It was the early 80’s before it was legal to sell alcohol there. (When I was in high school we drove up to the Tennessee state line to by beer and over an hour to Savannah TN to buy liquor). Even today, the local laws and regulations make it a particularly tough town to run a bar, and the few who did were more inclined towards booking big-hair cover bands with truck loads of lights and equipment. Our closest home gigs were in Huntsville or Birmingham (an hour to an hour and a half away).

For our homecoming show, we rented the old Shoals Theatre. We rented a big enough sound system, hired an opening act, and bought ads in the local paper and radio. We expected to draw four to five hundred (and I’m sure that at that time we could have).

At around 5:30 that day, while we were having soundcheck, a tornado went through the area destroying a truck stop and a bunch of homes (mobile and otherwise). Seventeen people came to our show and the next Monday I had to take out a loan to cover the debts that we incurred. Because of our recent press attention, a couple of big record-company guys (from Nashville, two and a half hours to the north) came down to see us. One of them had seen us earlier that fall and had assured us that we were going to be the “next big thing”. He was bringing his business partner with him. Unfortunately, he missed his turn in Athens AL. and drove another hour south before he realized it. He headed north up the two-laned 157, right into the heart of the storm. By the time they got to Florence, they were both very tired and very cranky. Seeing us play our set in the cavernous empty theatre only added to their misery.

After our set, the big record company guys and I went across the street to Cobblestone’s Restaurant to have a drink and discuss the show. They were gnarly and I was downright depressed. The partner asked “So, what’s the deal with all the goddamn train songs?"

The next morning, I had to be at work at 8:00 am. When I walked into Ken Nix Pharmacy, the newspaper gave full coverage of the tornado and it’s damage. The headline quoted an eyewitness. “It Sounded Like A Train”.

I wrote one more train song.

TORNADOES (originally titled “It Sounded Like A Train”)

The clouds started forming 5:00 PM
The funnel clouds touched down five miles north of Russellville
Siren’s were blowing, clouds spat rain
and as the thing went threw, I swear, It sounded like a train

It came without no warning said Bobby Jo McLean
She and husband Nolen always loved to watch the rain
It sucked him out the window, he ain’t come home again
All she can remember is it sounded like a train

Pieces of that truckstop
litter up the highway
I been told.
And I hear that missing trucker ended up in Kansas
(or maybe it was Oz)

The Nightmare Tour ended for my band and me
the night all the shit went down
a homecoming concert, the night the tornadoes hit my home town
The few who braved the weather were sucked out of the auditorium
I can still remember the sound of their applause in the rain
as it echoed through them storm clouds, I swear, It sounded like a train.

lyrics by Patterson Hood
music by Adam’s House Cat (Cooley, Cahoon, Hood, and Tremblay)
written November 1988
©1989 Cat House Music