Horror is real and Runnaway train shows that – without leaving it to the imagination.
“Good morning, Golden Morning” – With a breezy jolly pace, radio DJ Marisa greets her listeners and then pronounces the name of the song she just played for ‘just woken up’ Holland. “Runnaway train by Soul Asylum; that was a big hit in 1993” and then we move on to the next track for us radiolisteners. With a knot in my stomach and tears behind my eye sockets, I sit in the car, not yet ready for the upbeat note that has now begun. My mind, thinking in pictures, colors, smells and empathy, still lingers on the runaway train.
Etched on my retina, the images from the music video, of a “too young” girl waiting by the side of the road among adult women; painted up, not as a princess or dragon, but as a prostitute only to be picked up by a pedophile. The boy who witnesses a murder and runs away from the danger and demons that haunt him. The girl who is brutally pushed into a van by some men and then is joined by – one of the tough buddies – who takes off his shirt before getting in. And the mother who loses her baby in the street during an unguarded moment by kidnapping. Horror is real and “Runnaway Train” shows that – without leaving it to the imagination.
The energy of abuse, fear, danger and repression: I recognize it. “Do you?” Ever since my childhood, close by, in the family and environment I grew up in, from television images, news reports and how about the human trafficking, rape and humiliation my ancestors had to endure during slavery. An energetic transmission of the deep pain, shame, guilt and disgrace. As a child you pick that up, it doesn’t even (always) have to be your own experience; that’s how I came to realize it later.
Runnaway train. The underlying meaning of this unforgettable never-ending song is said to be about the singer’s depression. I catch that too. His singing feels pure and raw, desperately longing in loneliness groping for redemption. That’s what many artists, activists and performers do. They express the pain and merciless cruelty going on in their inner and outer worlds and wonder: Will it ever stop?
“Somehow I just don’t believe it”
Listen and watch the song here: https://SoulAsylum.lnk.to/listenYD https://SoulAsylum.lnk.to/listenYD
Natalie
(Foto Viktor Mogilat@Pexels)