Music Review // Matty Simpson "Boxcar Baby"

 

The sound of Matty Simpson falls somewhere between Americana and grunge on this song, "Boxcar Baby", as there are big keys but even bigger guitar parts.  In some ways I am reminded of Neil Young in how this sounds, but at other times I don't hear Tom Petty in this so much as I feel like it is a song he could've made and had as part of an unreleased album somewhere.  That harmonica comes in as well and with the title of this song, you will most likely already have an idea of how it's going musically.

During this music video you see the train tracks and I often wonder if people ride trains the same way that they used to do.  Not in the sense that you could catch a commuter train, as they all seem so advanced and modern now, but when you think about scenes from film and television- as those characters run up aside the train, throw their luggage and then jump onto it.  Do people still do that?  Are people even able to or are trains better protected?  I just feel like in the passage of time we lose so much we don't talk about and this could be one of those things.

One of the lyrics in this song simply says: "Take me far away".   Being that this song is about a boxcar, which is on a train, there has to be that overall, broad sense of it being about escaping where you are.  Wouldn't you rather be somewhere else right now?  Wouldn't you rather be some place better?  And I think you could take this as a specific location that you could point out on a map, but also just as a feeling, as the way it is when you're around another person, and that might be where you want to go.  

As the lyrics say, "I need you here / The song you sang is still ringing in my ear".  If this was simply about going from LA to NYC, I think the song would have a title like "NYC Bound" or something similar.  Having that ringing in your ear, sort of becoming put into trance by how you felt about that person shows that you aren't going to a destination on a map but rather your destination is where "Boxcar Baby" is.  It's not like your idea of paradise is sitting on the beach in Florida, your idea of paradise is just being on that train, wherever it's going, with "Boxcar Baby".