Song of the Month! (Encore Presentation)

Signs along the Androscoggin River in Brunswick and Topsham, Maine, warn that operations at a nearby dam could cause the water to rise suddenly.  A good metaphor for the often unpredictable nature of problems, the signs started me writing “Trouble Train” — the train idea came along later (as it always seems to do for me) and seemed to work better as the enclosing theme. This was one of two songs I wrote for my band the Cowlix (1989–1994) — but the theme is better suited by the heavier treatment heard here by the band that followed the ’Lix, the Boarders (1994–1996).

That theme is never irrelevant, but I must say that for me “Trouble Train” was a bit more abstract three decades ago than it is now, in these years of climate crisis, political hair fires, civic derangement and shooting war — not to mention the creeping curtailments that age inflicts on one’s sense of self.

The Boarders: Doug Hubley, guitar and vocals. Jonathan Nichols-Pethick, drums. Gretchen Schaefer, bass. Recorded in 1995. “Trouble Train” copyright © 1994 by Douglas L. Hubley. Photos by Doug Hubley (above) and Jeff Stanton (below). Hear “Trouble Train” below, buy it on Bandcamp!