2/18: Runaway Train (Geddy Lee)

A song I can't remember, yet can't stop singing, either.

If your heart is aching, just remove the shame.
You've got to want it.
Give your soul a shaking and refuse the blame.
You've got to want it.

“Runaway Train” is one of those songs that, the first time I heard it, I just sorta shrugged my shoulders and skipped onto the next track. It’s… fine? Not great, not terrible. It just… is.

Yet clearly it stuck in my brain somehow, swimming around in my unconscious, because while, for the life of me, I can’t summon any lyrics from this song on demand, I still sometimes find myself humming the main melody while walking the dog or doing the dishes.

I can’t quite figure out why this happens. I haven’t listened to it that much, and it’s not that memorable of a song!

Yet there are a few notable things about “Runaway Train,” I suppose. First, there’s that the pfft-pfft sound threading in and out, the one that kind of sounds like static. The sound returns in “Grace to Grace,” where it becomes a leitmotif for trains, both the ones that took Geddy’s parents to the concentration camps and the train of history, barrelling onward despite indescribable loss. I like that it’s also used again here, in “Runaway Train,” for much the same purpose: a train that keeps driving on, regardless if anybody’s at the wheel.

Also, Ben Mink does the guitar for this song; he’s best known as the artist who laid down the violin track in “Losing It.” (

Steve Goldberg

just wrote about “Losing It” at Earworms & Song Loops! Go check it out!) Mink does a pretty good job on the guitar part here, and I especially like the way the guitar comes in at 2:55, like it’s underscoring Geddy’s vocalization.

Finally, I had to listen to this song three times in order to even pick out what the bass guitar was doing throughout. I’d catch it for a few measures, and then it would fade behind the guitar or vocal. That’s a really interesting production choice, and I’m sure a deliberate one. Geddy’s signature instrument becomes something like a subliminal voice in this song. which lyrically is all about how you can’t just coast through life, you have to be intentional—in other words, ”you’ve got to want it.” Because you can ignore the things you want, but they’ll always be there, singing to you, just out of your notice, but always within your reach.

Kinda like a song you can’t recall, but can’t quite get out of your head either, I guess.