The Children of "Runaway Train"

November 3, 2016 2:40 PM

Elon Green unpacks the history of some of the kids featured in the iconic and haunting video for Soul Asylum's "Runaway Train." TW: Discussion of child abduction.
posted by zeusianfog (15 comments total)

One of my acquaintances from college would tell people he was one of the kids from the Runaway Train video ("the first version," he'd say, "not the second"). We don't keep in touch.

Didn't know Tony Kaye directed it; I have heard stories about him, but this one is a good one.
posted by infinitewindow at 3:08 PM on November 3, 2016

I love Soul Asylum, but that song haunted me when my kids were teenagers. A frequent (i.e., seemed to get a lot of airplay on XRT) reminder that there might well be all kinds of dangerous things going on in their lives/minds that I was absolutely clueless about and/or powerless to remedy. It's still hard to hear, even though those kids are now in the relative safety of their twenties. (The article is a difficult read, but I appreciate the update.)
posted by she's not there at 3:37 PM on November 3, 2016 [3 favorites]

Even though I was a fan of this song, I had never seen the video. It really was eerie, especially the back-of-the-van bit. I gotta say, though, I noticed that all of real missing children were awfully white.
posted by bendy at 3:42 PM on November 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

Also, my friends and I always read the song as being about drug addiction.
posted by bendy at 3:43 PM on November 3, 2016

This video is one of the things I've always loved about the alternative music boom of the early 90s. There was a social conscience to it that I found inspirational. There have been other bands to do PSA stuff since then, and I know it happened before (Live Aid and stuff), but this came along at a formative period of my life and showed me that success doesn't just mean swimming in a Scrooge McDuck money bin, that it can create opportunities to do good. It made a big impression.
posted by kevinbelt at 3:49 PM on November 3, 2016 [9 favorites]

In the UK*, the video featured two girls who both turned out to be victims of serial killer Peter Tobin. I found it desperately sad when I realised. One of the girls were kidnapped up here in Scotland, the other one in the south of England. He was only caught when he murdered a girl in a church just up the road from where I lived (and he did this the very week I moved here - I was freaked out).

I now associate the song with Tobin which feels so awful.

*Ironically the UK version is blocked here in the UK, so I cannot link it.
posted by kariebookish at 4:01 PM on November 3, 2016

Interesting article, but I have to call shenanigans on the "one hit wonder" tag. Soul Asylum's next album, Let Your Dim Light Shine, was the #6 album on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1995, with a single ranked #20 overall & #1 on modern rock tracks chart. The album after that didn't do so well but still charted (#121 for 1998), with a single ranked #23 on modern rock tracks chart...
posted by superna at 6:39 PM on November 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

Runaway Train was a bit of a shock (shlocky shock) to people who followed Soul Asylum in the 80's, although in retrospect should have seen it coming. Still, Sometime To Return is a solid tune.
posted by malphigian at 7:09 PM on November 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

Interesting to learn more about the track. Sounds like, in a way, it kinda hijacked the band's future. Also interesting that, while I never bought it, I've already heard it so much I only watched a little of the video.

Few pop hits have lent themselves to such constructive use.
posted by Twang at 7:09 PM on November 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

Shortly before this song came out I worked at a drop in center for street kids. They screened kids to make sure that they weren't runaways (i.e., didn't like the rules at home, etc.) they were either kids that had left abuse/neglect severe enough that living on the streets was a better/safer option, or they were "throw away" kids - kicked out of their house by a parent(s) because they were "inconvenient", "too much trouble", gay, etc. The kids were very often unbelievably resilient given everything they'd been through. I am sure that I got at least as much from working with them as they got from me.

I saw this video very differently, because I wondered how many of these kids might have come from similar situations to the kids I had worked with. Given the very difficult realities of surviving on the streets, especially as a kid/teen, I think many runaways return home fairly quickly, so seeing the kids in the video who had been gone for some time made me wonder what had happened to them if they had indeed chosen to leave (or had been forced out).
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 7:56 PM on November 3, 2016 [10 favorites]

Dave Pirner: It turned into a joke for me. I went into an Irish bar once and there was a sign that said, “‘Danny Boy’ — ten bucks.” I just wanted to put a sign on my shirt that said, “‘Runaway Train’ — ten bucks.”
posted by Beardman at 8:22 AM on November 4, 2016

I have to call shenanigans on the "one hit wonder" tag.

This is a perpetual debate between me and my chart nerd brother. I say that if they only had one top ten single they're a one hit wonder. I'm aware of "Misery" only because of the Weird Al parody.
posted by zeusianfog at 12:04 PM on November 4, 2016 [1 favorite]

I've always liked the song, and wasn't aware of the nature of the accompanying video--it came out in that time between my having easy access to MTV and having easy access to videos via the web. I'm simultaneously happy for the kids that were eventually found and haunted by the ones who weren't.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:50 PM on November 4, 2016

We always read it as about depression, but that may have been because when it came out I was going through my first major depressive episode.
posted by fiercecupcake at 1:12 PM on November 4, 2016 [1 favorite]

Or because of lines like "How on Earth did I get so jaded/Life's mystery seems so faded"
posted by thelonius at 1:13 PM on November 4, 2016