It would make all the sense in the world if Rolling Boxcar International sprung from Youngstown, Ohio, as stated on Instagram. But I’m more likely to believe that’s just where they happened to stop rolling after they jumped off the train. I’d also believe you if you told me they jumped from a time machine rather than a locomotive, but I couldn’t tell you when they began the journey.
The sound on “We Thought You Died” is only modern in the sense that the sound is clear and present, so likely recorded well past the Victrola days. However, the song, the instruments, and the humans playing them could well be from any time. This is all to say: these guys are timeless. That’s a compliment.
I think this fella could be singing about the fear of his father dying, but it could also easily be a spiritual, sung not in that little white church on the prairie on a Sunday morning under gigantic blue skies, but rather the Saturday afternoon before, after the picnic, performed by the deacons and ushers. I think at any rate, something like that did, in fact, occur, the memory of which was passed down from mouth to ear until Rolling Boxcar International breathed it back out, capturing it for us, recorded in a time not its own, so we could both remember and continue.
Take a listen to “We Thought You Died” below.
Written by stevegrawks
