Jimi Hendrix – Hear My Train A Comin’

In Jimi’s short life he must have stayed hooked up to a recording console 24/7. So many albums have been released posthumously.

The only Jimi Hendrix Experience studio recording of this song crops up on the 2010 Valleys of Neptune album. The documentary film Experience (1968) features the only version released during Hendrix’s lifetime.

The song was inspired by earlier American spirituals and blues songs which use a train metaphor to represent salvation. Hendrix recorded the song in live, studio, and impromptu settings several times between 1967 and 1970, but never completed it to his satisfaction.

It was also known as “Getting My Heart Back Together Again,” Hendrix often played this song live.

Hendrix first played it in studio on December 19, 1967. During a photo shoot session, he was given a guitar and asked to play something for the camera. The original tape was re-discovered in 1993 only and remastered by Eddie Kramer.

Hendrix producer/engineer Eddie Kramer: “It shows a complete at-oneness with his instrument. Jimi had a thought in his mind, and in a nanosecond it gets through his body, through his heart, through his arms, through the fingers, onto the guitar.”

From Songfacts

The version on Hendrix’s posthumous album, People, Hell & Angels, was drawn from Jimi’s first ever recording session with his old army pal, Billy Cox, and drummer Buddy Miles. He would later record the groundbreaking album Band Of Gypsys with the powerhouse rhythm duo. Co-producer John McDermott commented to Digital Spy: “Billy and Buddy understood how to set the tempo. If you listen to this recording, they play it the same way as they did on the Live At The Fillmore East album. They knew intuitively that the song should have a great, menacing groove; it shouldn’t be old-school, old-tempo, four-bar stuff. They wanted it to have a totally different feel, and that’s what makes it exciting.”

Hear My Train A Comin’

Hear my train a comin’
Hey
Wait around the train station
Waitin’ for that train
Take me
Take me away
From this lonesome time
A whole lot of people put me through a lot of changes
And my girl done put me down

Tears burnin’ me
Burnin’ me
Way down in my soul
Way down in my heart
It’s too bad you don’t love no more, child
Too bad you and me have to part, have to part baby
Have to part

Hear my train is coming
Hear my train is coming
Hear my train is coming
Hear my train is coming

Gonna make it bigger
With all that’s still in my heart
Gonna be a magic boy ooh child
Gonna come back and buy this town
An’ put it all in my shoe
In my shoe baby
You make love to me one more time girl
So I give a piece to you baby
Hey hey hey

Hear my train is coming
Hear my train is coming
Here come the rest of my soul
Movin’ through the washer baby
Hear my train a comin’ yeah yeah

Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player.

20 thoughts on “Jimi Hendrix – Hear My Train A Comin’”

  4. I was fortunate to see him in concert in Dallas, 1968. For a three piece band, they put out a lot of sound, not just loud, because it was extremely loud, but together musically. Hendrix bass player was solid as they come and Jimi’s style allowed him to play rythm along with his lead.

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    1. I’m jealous Phil. From everything I read about what people have said about him…they said you had to see him live to get how great he was…If it was 68 I would say it was Noel Redding on bass…without another guitar he did have a lot of freedom.

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      1. Yes, it was only a three piece band. What made Hendrix so good was that he would play some rythm in between lead riffs and be singing the entire time. Made it seem like their was another guitar player.

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  5. Train as a metaphor for salvation…that’s interesting, I hadn’t thought of that. Add in the train as a metaphor for sex (“Into You Like A Train” for example) and no wonder there are so many songs about trains that aren’t about identifiable ones like “The City of New Orleans”

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    1. Yea I talked to a couple today who actually got to see him…I can’t imagine man…can’t imagine. I’ve read where seeing ihm was the only way to really appreciate him.

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