"Night Train": A-. It is not often that I will listen to the latest record release by a music artist and subsequently decide to purchase all of that artist's previous records. After enjoying Jason Aldean's latest effort, Night Train, which was released in mid-October, I have decided to take the plunge. Right before the Quentin Chronicle was created in November 2011, I saw Aldean on a country music awards show and was impressed enough to buy his fourth album, My Kinda Party. There are a few songs on that record that have stuck with me over time, and I predict that at least a handful of tunes from Night Train will as well.
Common themes that one can find in Aldean's songs are: his love of small towns, including those he's left behind; riding in a truck or an old Ford through the countryside and headed for a favorite spot, usually with his girl snuggled next to him in the front seat; rivers and fields; putting in a hard day's work; and memories of his escapades as a teen. The lyrics evoke pictures in the listeners' minds. Who needs music video?
Aldean grew up in Macon, Georgia and moved to Nashville at the age of twenty-one to pursue his music career. He was not exactly an overnight sensation, but stuck with his dreams through the ups and downs. Three years later he married his high school sweetheart, Jessica, and four years after that released his debut self-titled album.
Some folks dislike country music because they view it as having too narrow a range of subjects, usually drinking, fighting or lost love. While you can find songs in the Aldean catalogue that fall into those categories, his repertoire is much broader than that, and so is the perspective from which he sings. For example, Wheels Rollin' is one of the better songs I've heard describing what it's like to live the road-weary life of a touring band. In Black Tears he laments the sad degrading situation facing a dancer at a strip club. In Water Tower, he personifies his home town's water tower, which has seen the town's major events unfold before it and has served "like a lighthouse in a storm" to guide the singer back home. Drink One For Me appears to be sung from the perspective of a soldier stationed overseas who is thinking about his friends back in his old stomping grounds.
My favorite song on the disc is the lead-off, This Nothin' Town. I always think it's wise to start an album with a song which would make a good live concert opener. Excellent choice by Aldean here, as this number has a rock n' roll feel but with country lyrics:
It might look a little laid back to ya
But it ain't all just porches and plows
But don't let that one red light fool ya
There's always something going down in this nothin' town.
The title track, Night Train, is memorable. He and his girl drive out to the country, then hop out and start running toward the hillside where they can camp and watch the freight train go by.
Hurry up girl I hear it comin'
Got a moon and a billion stars
Sound of steel and old boxcars...
Let's go listen to the night train.
Of course, as alluded to above, what would a country album be without a few love songs? These are the songs which best suit Aldean's sincere southern voice. Two of the best are Talk and Walking Away. In the first of the pair the singer tells his girl that he's tired of talking, now "I don't want to waste that moon." It's time to move on to something else. I wonder what he has in mind? The second song is a warning to a girl who's attracted to him. He tells her that if she's smart she will walk away as fast as she can. She can't "be the angel that could make me change." She is too good for him; he knows it but she doesn't.
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