It was midnight in the deep cedar woods of Oregon and The Orphan Trains were lost.
“We had only been in Oregon a few days,” Wolff said, “Amanda had quit her corporate job a month before. We had both just sold our cars on ebay and decided to make a life of songwriting. The plan was to write meaningful music for the radio-weary ears of the world. We had wind in our blood and wings in our lungs. Then we went hiking.”
The trail was completely black, but The Orphan Trains kept walking.
“On our way into the park, five hours earlier,” Amanda said, “I saw a sign that showed a huge picture of a bear. It said: BEWARE OF BEARS. Beside the bear sign was a picture of a Cougar. That one said: BEWARE OF LARGE CATS. Wolff just laughed.”
Eventually, The Orphan Trains came to a gravel road which ran between two steep and shadowy embankments. A sliver of moon haunted the sky.
“I started singing,” Amanda said. “My thought was that if we sang, the bears would leave us alone. I had just written a song that morning about a foster child named Jenell who was lost in her life, so to speak. Well, I sang that song.”
Wolff didn’t think singing Jenell was a great idea.
“The song is too beautiful,” he said. “I was sure it would draw the bears right over to us. Not only that, it has a very feline-friendly line, a line about how the little girl is really a big fan of jungle cats.”
The line is When the circus came to town, you rode on an elephant, but in your secret heart, you loved the lion best…
“I suppose the line is a bit feline-friendly, but Wolff didn’t have a better solution. When I finished singing Jenell, he started singing On The Night You Were Born, which, I must admit, is my favorite of his songs. HOWEVER, he howls in that song. He howls like a big ol’ Georgia dog. And we all know that in the dark woods there are creatures that communicate with howls.”
“I don’t remember seeing one sign that said: BEWARE OF WOLVES,” Wolff said. “Not one.”
So, The Orphan Trains compromised and sang their namesake song, a song about two orphans, Alfred and Emma, who are taken from the streets of New York City and sent west on a train, two children lost in the woods of homelessness, poverty and starvation, who, through ferocious perseverance, eventually find their way home.
“We brought an album out of those woods,” Amanda said. “And we made it home without encountering a single cougar or bear.”
“The bears and cougars were out there,” Wolff said. “They just laid down in their pine needle beds and let our songs wash into their ears. There was no way they could eat us. They were too busy listening. ”
Three months later, THE ORPHAN TRAINS gave birth to their debut album: On The Night You Were Born.
On The Night You Were Born has been described as “Really Stunning Stuff” (The Patriot-News) and features 12 Songs and a Lullaby. This album takes you on a journey with: orphans on an 1850’s train, laughing trees, a runaway bride in New Orleans, a lion-loving foster child, a shotgun-wielding father and a man who imagines he is a record spinning beneath the needle of time.
THE ORPHAN TRAINS take their name from the 1800’s trains that ferried orphans from New York City to farms of the west. One of their songs describes the lives of several of these orphans, Alfred & Emma, who leave the cold streets of New York and roll into the unknown.
Fore More Information & Full Lyrics, Please visit: WWW.THEORPHANTRAINS.COM
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