Midnight Train to Georgia

If I could sing – which I cant, and if I went to Karaoke nights, which I avoid like kebabs dropped on the pavement, my chosen song would be Midnight Train to Georgia. It’s a song I have always loved and which, my own efforts excluded, seems impossible to sing badly.

I have tried to work out why I like it. The words and music fut well together. It mentions trains – a good start. Trains are big in blues music. Lovers are always leaving on trains – and usually at midnight. In this song, it’s almost cinematic. A tragic love story about a character whose dreams and ambitions have failed in L.A. and has to return home, metaphorical tail between legs, but whose partner will stay with them.

Here are the lyrics - with all the backing vocals  and repetitions stripped out.

Mmmm L.A
Proved too much for the man
So he's leavin' the life he's come to know
He said he's goin' back to find
Ooh ooh ooh what's left of his world
The world he left behind
Not so long ago

He's leaving
On that midnight train to Georgia
Said he's goin' back
To a simpler place and time
Oh yes he is

And I'll be with him
On that midnight train to Georgia
I 'd rather live in his world
Than live without him in mine

He kept dreamin' 
Ooh that someday he'd be a star
 But he sure found out the hard way
That dreams don't always come true
Oh no! ah ah 

So he pawned all his hopes
And he even sold his old car
Bought a one way ticket back
To the life he once knew
Oh yes he did

He said he would
Oh oh he's leavin 
On that midnight train to Georgia

What else do we learn? He's from Georgia originally and has only been in LA for a short time. And now he is returning empty handed, but with the narrator. So much story in a few lines! And those lines "
I 'd rather live in his world
Than live without him in mine"!

 The “classic” version is by Gladys Knight and the Pips. It is a version that has aged well and still sends shivers up the spine. It’s the one that everyone knows – and is one of the great soul classics. The structure of the song and the arrangement are great. The backing vocals - rather than the usual filling in and repletion add to the story and push it along. In her autobiography, Between Each Line of Pain and Glory, Gladys Knight wrote that she hoped the song was a comfort to the many thousands who come each year from elsewhere to L.A. to pursue their dreams, but then fail to realise that dream and plunge into despair.

I decided to look further though – the song doesn’t sound like the other popular soul songs of the period – it is richer in context and has so much implied story line – and is different from her other songs.

Gladys Knight’s version is in fact a cover version. It is a copy of one by Cissy Houston (now more famous for being Whitney’s mother – but recognised at the time a great singer in her own right and a backing singer on countless major hits).

But, dig deeper.

Cissy Houston’s version is also a cover. But with a few words changed. The original song is by Jim Weatherly, a country and western singer. It was originally titled “Midnight Plane to Houston” – but soul singers in that era didn’t get planes – and Georgia is more soulful place! And it is based on real people. The person heading for that midnight plane was Farrah Fawcett – whose hair inspired a million girls in the 70s and whose poster adorned a similar number of male walls. And the partner is Lee Major, the 6 million dollar man.