SOUL ASYLUM: Runaway Train CD. 4 songs. Check video

Description

Soul Asylum ? Runaway Train
Label: Columbia ? 659390 2
Format: CD, Single
Country: UK & Europe
Released: 1993
Genre: Rock
Style: Alternative Rock
Tracklist:
1 Runaway Train
Producer Michael Beinhorn
4:26
2 Never Really Been (Live)
Recorded By, Mixed By Thom Panunzio
3:12
3 By The Way
Recorded By, Mixed By Eric Pierson
3:44
4 Everybody Loves A Winner
Recorded By, Mixed By Eric Pierson
Written-By Booker T. Jones, William Bell
5:07
Companies etc
Phonographic Copyright (p) Sony Music Entertainment Inc.
Copyright (c) Sony Music Entertainment Inc.
Mastered At DADC Austria
Credits
Written-By Dave Pirner* (tracks: 1, 2, 3)
Notes
Track 1 taken from the Columbia release “Grave Dancers Union” COL 472253.
Track 2 recorded at Liberty Lunch, AUstin, Texas, 12/3/92.
Barcode: 5 099765 939026
Matrix / Runout: 659390-2 12 A2
Rights Society: MCPS/BIEM/STEMRA
Label Code: LC 0162
Other: CA

“Runaway Train” is a song by American rock band Soul Asylum. It was released in June 1993 as the fourth single from the album, Grave Dancers Union. The song led Soul Asylum to international status, and helped bring their album, Grave Dancers Union to a multi-platinum level. It was the third single off that album and reached number five on the Billboard Hot 100. The track won a Grammy Award for Best Rock Song in 1994.

Music video:
The music video, directed by Tony Kaye received heavy airplay on MTV and VH1 during its duration.
Several versions of the video were made. The video for the United States begins with a fade to a black screen with big, white blocked text reading: “There are over one million youth lost on the streets of America”, whereas the UK version begins with “100,000 youth are lost on the streets of Britain”. Next shown is a drawing of a girl, and a Dave Pirner voice-over says that the drawing is by a girl who had run away more than 110 times. The scene was often omitted when the video was shown, a common practice when videos had additional footage before or after the song.
After Pirner spoke, the video continued with various shots of the band playing the song, and Dave singing. Three concrete scenes are shown interspersed among the other images of the video. During the first verse, a child is shown witnessing his grandfather beating, and eventually killing, his grandmother, and running from their house in fear. During the second verse, a young teenage girl is pimped as a prostitute, and is initially purchased by the aforementioned abuser. Later, she is dragged into a van by a gang, after which she is picked up by paramedics, having been raped and beaten. During the coda of the song, a baby is snatched from his stroller by an older woman, with his mother running after the kidnappers car.
Throughout the music video, various images of children running, or appearing with injuries from abuse, are shown. During the choruses, pictures of missing children would appear on the screen. After each picture was shown, their full name would appear in large capital letters on the screen, along with the year they had been “missing since…”.
After the video, in an ending also not regularly shown, Pirner says in front of the camera, “If you’ve seen one of these kids, or you are one of them, please call this number,” with the following screen showing a number one could contact. MTV cut this part out because they did not want to have the video confused with being a public service announcement. VH1 shows the UK version in its full length.
There were three original versions of the video in the United States, totaling 36 missing children shown.Depending on what country the video was being broadcast, they would show children from that area who are missing. The version shown in Australia showed a number of young backpacking tourists whose families were looking for them. Several of them turned out to be victims of Ivan Milat, the Backpacker Murderer.
The video was successful in reuniting many of the missing children with their families. In 2006, guitarist Dan Murphy stated in an interview with Pasadena Weekly that some of children who were found were not returned to the best of conditions: “Some werent the best scenarios. I met a fireman on the East Coast whose daughter was in the end of the video, and hed been in a bitter custody battle with his wife over her, Murphy said. It turned out the girl hadnt run away, but was killed and buried in her backyard by her mother. Then on tour, another girl told us laughingly You ruined my life because she saw herself on the video at her boyfriends house and it led her being forced back into a bad home situation