Railroad Town Without A Train
By Thomm Jutz and Tim Stafford
Thomm Jutz and Tim Stafford have a knack—individually and together—for writing historical-themed songs. The two have cowritten such songs for other artists and for their aptly named duo album, Lost Voices (March 2023), which includes“Take That Shot,” about the place of photography in our lives historically; “Vaudeville Blues,” based on the life of Emmitt Miller; and others.
Their cowrite, “Railroad Town Without A Train,” recorded in 2021 by fellow Mountain Fever Records artist Jr. Williams, tells the true tale (from the perspective of a fictional character) of a man who lived through the closing of a railroad in a town that was built, well, around the railroad. The song has resonated well with fans and reached #1 on the Bluegrass Today chart.
The Title: From a Comment Comes a Song
Jutz gleaned the idea for “Railroad Town” from discussion associated with his recently acquired graduate degree in Appalachian Studies. “In a community engagement class, we discussed a small town in east Tennessee, Erwin. The town’s railroad – the CC&O – transported coal from Virginia to the Carolina coast and employed 300 people,” said Jutz. “In 2015, the CC&O closed that railyard and told those people a couple of weeks in advance that they would lose their work.”
Jutz read a comment about the situation that struck him as powerful—like a song title. A townsperson mentioned a railroad town “that doesn’t have a train,” and that phrase caught Jutz’s ear, “I thought, ‘Wow … ‘a railroad town without a train.’ That says a lot and is certainly not an isolated case. It’s a phenomenon of transportation, especially pertinent to the U.S., where the railroad literally put places on and took places off the map. The same thing happened again with the interstate system.”
Today, that barren railyard still sits in the middle of Erwin. Without imparting judgement, Jutz and Stafford simply tell the story of those affected. “The character in the song could be any one of those people that were laid off,” said Jutz. “He doesn’t know what he’ll do, and one day, he’ll explain to his son about the romance and lore of the train.”
The Lyrics: Concise, Conversational
Telling a full story in under three minutes is the songwriter’s challenge. Jutz and Stafford managed well while incorporating beauty, alliteration, and intimacy for the listeners.
The narrator loses his job with little heads-up (Early Thursday morning we finally got the news / We all went home that evening with the Clinchfield Blues) and little severance to count on (They say they’ll pay the wages for another 60 days / And then we’re on our own with whatever we have saved).
Not only is he deserted financially, but his town also will be forever changed by the loss (It’s been a hundred and ten years and overnight it’s gone).
In the chorus, we’re given a sense of the future and the nostalgia that will surround this railroad town (Folks are gonna move on / And all that will remain / Is a track that runs right through / A railroad town without a train).
The combination of the song’s effective lyrics and melody with Williams’s conversational delivery lets listeners come away empathetic – as if they’re in the story with the singer, feeling the finality of that last whistle blowing (Yesterday at 3 o’clock I heard the whistle blow / Of the last locomotive on the CC&O).
The Singer: A Song Finds its Home
The emotion of the song struck a “relatable” chord right away with Williams, who grew up in Irvine, Kentucky, near the railroad town of Ravenna. “The Ravenna Depot carried passengers early on,” he recalled, “but then the railroad (CSX) used the tracks to bring coal through eastern Kentucky down through Ravenna. There were towns like Ravenna all over Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia – where a railroad was a booming part of the town until coal mines shut down and left railroad companies defunct. Hundreds of rail cars still sit at the Ravenna Depot. So much in that song resonated with me, I felt I had to sing it.”
Jutz and Stafford were happy to have Williams cut the song. “Once in a while, pitching songs is a painful process,” said Jutz. “In this case, it was easy because Jr. latched onto the song. It spoke to him, and we’re so grateful.”
When “Railroad Town” went to #1 last year, Williams got congratulatory calls from Jutz and from Mountain Fever Records Executive Director Mark Hodges, who woke him with the news. “I thought, ‘who’s calling this early,’” recalled Williams. “It went to voice-mail, and Mark left this message: ‘Congratulations, Hoss! Your song’s number one!’ I did feel the song had potential to go top 10 because of the story, but that blew me away!
“I think we captured it well in the studio, too. When I thought about how to relay it, I kept thinking of Tony Rice’s Manzanita. What makes that record special to me is the interaction between the instrumentalists. Jerry Douglas may play a dobro lick, and Sam Bush is right behind, answering on fiddle. I heard that kind of flow in this song, and I said, ‘Guys, be on your toes … this has that Manzanita feel.’ They got it! From intro to tag, it was the way I pictured it.”
More on the Songwriting: Follow Your Nose
While Jutz and Stafford had co-written before, most of their song catalog came out of the pandemic, with the logistics of working online over Zoom directing their writing process. Stafford explained, “You can’t play together because of the latency issue, so one of us will come up with an idea for a melody and we’ll work from there.
“Usually that happens after we get the lyric. It varies from writer to writer whether they like to start with melody or with a lyric – when I teach songwriting, that’s what everybody wants to know. But when you cowrite, you pretty much flesh out the idea first, or at least that’s how Thomm and I do it. We’ll get most of the lyrics done before we pick up a guitar. Then, you try to get melodic phrases that reflect the poignancy of lines – without forcing it. Usually, that means the first thing that comes to your mind will be a good idea, so you better record it.”
Delving into that “first thing,” Stafford added, “Your subconscious deals with everything it’s heard, and it’s working. You don’t realize it – it’s unconscious – but that unconscious part of songwriting is important. It’s a mysterious thing. I don’t know where it comes from, but I’m afraid to even talk about it, for fear I’ll lose it.”
Jutz agreed, “Tim and I are both profoundly influenced by that method of utilizing the unconscious mind in writing. We trust each other’s intuition. There’s not much of a filter when we write, it’s just speaking out lines and the other finishes them. That’s when songwriting is a joy … like dancing. You’re moving together, not as individuals. In songwriting, it’s important to follow your nose.”
“Railroad Town Without A Train” is a satisfying example of solid songwriting, and now well after its initial release, fans still ask for the song, according to Williams, “No matter where I sing it, somebody comes up to say, ‘That song reminds me of my hometown.’ I’m glad I could record a song that brings back those memories.”
Past winners of the IBMA Songwriter of the Year Award (and multiple other songwriting and artist awards), both Thomm Jutz and Tim Stafford are respected writers and teachers of songwriting in bluegrass and other genres. For more on their writing and artistry, visit thommjutz.com and timstaffordguitar.com. In addition, learn more about Jr Williams at mountainfever.com.
