Train From Kansas City

Certain Songs #2563: Superchunk – “The Train From Kansas City”

March 1, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Tossing Seeds (Singles 89-91)
Year: 1989

. . .

While Superchunk’s version of the immortal “The Train From Kansas City” wasn’t the first version I ever heard — that would be The Shop Assistants version from their 1988 album, which I’d purchased in the wake of my love for The Primitives — it was the first one that well and truly stuck with me. Probably because I listened to Tossing Seeds (Singles 89-91) way more than I listened to that Shop Assistants album, though I did put their version of “The Train From Kansas City” on a mixtape, so it musta stuck stuck out a bit.

Certain Songs #2562: Superchunk – “Garlic”

February 28, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Tossing Seeds (Singles 89-91)
Year: 1990

. . .

As someone who learned early on that the stinking rose makes just about every type of meat that much more tasty — and once or twice ate the stuff raw (after several drinks, of course) — I absolutely couldn’t resist one of the other highlights of Tossing Seeds (Singles 89-91), the gloriously noisy “Garlic.”

Certain Songs #2194: The Shangri-La’s – “The Train From Kansas City”

October 6, 2021 by Jim Connelly

Album: Shangri-La’s 65!
Year: 1965

. . .

But the Shangri-La’s greatest song wasn’t even an A-side. Because of how the alphabet works, I’ve only so far written about a single version of “The Train From Kansas City,” which would be Neko Case’s version from The Tigers Have Spoken.

And in the coming months, I’ll probably be writing about The Shop Assistants version, which was the first one I heard, as well as the Superchunk version. But this is the original, which I didn’t even hear until a few years ago, because it never struck me to actually check out the Shangri-La’s, despite their clear awesomeness.