Down Bound Train is a song written by

Chuck Berry Charles Edward Anderson Berry (October 18, 1926 – March 18, 2017) was an American singer, guitarist and songwriter who pioneered rock and roll. Nicknamed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Father of Rock and Roll", he refined and de ...

. It was inspired by Berry's "

fire and brimstone Fire and brimstone ( ''gofrīt wāʾēš''; ) is an idiomatic expression referring to God's wrath found in both the Old and New Testaments. In the Bible, it often appears in reference to the fate of the unfaithful. Brimstone, an archaic term ...

" religious upbringing.SongFacts article
about Chuck Berry's song It is a song about redemption and a warning against alcohol abuse. A man who has too much to drink falls asleep on a bar room floor and has a vivid dream about riding a train, which is driven by

the devil Satan, also known as the Devil, is a devilish entity in Abrahamic religions who seduces humans into sin (or falsehood). In Judaism, Satan is seen as an agent subservient to God, typically regarded as a metaphor for the '' yetzer hara'', or 'e ...

. When the man wakes up he renounces the drink. "Down Bound Train" was released in December 1955 as the B Side of " No Money Down". The title is sometimes given as "The Down Bound Train" or "Downbound Train." It is one of the first rock records to employ fade-in and fade-out.

Negativland Negativland is an American experimental music band that originated in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1970s. The core of the band consists of Mark Hosler, David Wills (aka "The Weatherman"), Peter Conheim and Jon Leidecker (aka "Wobbly" ...

performed and recorded "Hellbound Plane" in concert; it is a parody of "Downbound Train" and suggested fictional character Dick Vaughn had died in a plane crash.

Cover versions

In 2020, Vika and Linda cover the song for their album, '' Sunday (The Gospel According to Iso)''. Covered by George Thorogood and the Destroyers, and renamed Hellbound Train, on their 1999 album Half a Boy/Half a Man.

References

1955 songs Chuck Berry songs Songs about trains Fiction about the Devil Songs written by Chuck Berry {{1950s-song-stub