Gillian Welch & David Rawlings: Woodland

That Old-Time, New Style Roll and Rock

You're sitting on a porch in the Shenandoah Valley, or maybe the hills of West Virginia, where freight trains are as common as a house finch or tufted titmouse. You hardly notice them. You're passing the pipe around with your new friends David Rawlings and Gillian Welch. They're friends because of the way their music always draws you in, makes you feel part of the conversation.

One of them says, "Saw a freight train yesterday," and at first you wonder what the deal is, because you see freight trains every day around here. Story continues: "Just a boxcar of blue/Showing daylight clear and through/Just an empty trainload of sky."

You try to visualize this, and it doesn't make any sense: a transparent freight car, with no sides or roof? The other says, kind of like a put-on: "Was it spirit, was it solid? Did I ditch that class in college?" In reply, the first one just quotes from a favorite Neil Young song.

"I said, Hey hey, my my." If the Welch/Rawlings body of work had four boxcars rollin…