Strawberry Moon: A True Story of a Mother's Train Journey East
"Strawberry Moon" is a true story. A mother and her two young sons ride the night train from South Bend, Indiana, through the Berkshires in Massachusetts, and she sings them a lullaby along the way.
It's the title track of our debut album, Strawberry Moon, which reached #4 on the FOLK-DJ chart. The song has had radio airplay, and the album also includes our #1 song, "Lighthouse Keeper."
Watch "Strawberry Moon" by Neptune's Car.
Buy the Song • Listen on Spotify
The Story Behind the Song
One afternoon at my day job (by day I'm a website designer, by night I'm a folk musician), a coworker and friend shared with me the story of her past. She asked if I might somehow be able to create a song out of it. She shared that years earlier, she had escaped an abusive marriage. With help from another coworker, she took her two young sons and boarded a train east, leaving everything behind.
It was not an easy process to create this song. I couldn't just let the writing process take hold of me and take me wherever it would lead. I had a responsibility to relate someone else's experience. There were lots of false starts. I felt I didn't have enough to go on. So, I emailed her a bunch of questions. I asked her about things that she remembered with her senses—sights, sounds, smells. Did she remember a song from that time? From these questions came some of my favorite details of the song. For example, she remembered that the porter had left a bottle of wine outside her door. She remembered how she felt when she saw the beauty of the Berkshires. At that time in her life, she was not yet a painter, as she is now, but she remembered that she wanted to become one.
The Route and the Lullaby
The song is a journey song. I documented the route that the train took from Indiana to Massachusetts and described the sights along the way: past Notre Dame and the southern shore of Lake Michigan, along the Mohawk River and the Erie Canal, by the Finger Lakes, and into the Berkshires. I also thought about how her two young children might have felt during this journey and wanted to put something comforting in it for them, like a lullaby. When I discovered a nursery rhyme called "Hush, Here Comes the Dream Man," with its train imagery, it felt like a perfect fit.
In most of my songs, I have included some reference to the moon. Since this journey took place in June, that puts this song under the Algonquin Strawberry Moon. I thought of how strawberries are hidden treasures and felt that this mother and her two young children were exactly that—hidden treasures.
Take the Song Home
Lyrics
Boarded an eastbound train
in South Bend, Indiana,
near the golden dome of Notre Dame.
We passed the southern beaches
of Lake Michigan in June,
carved from glaciers long ago.
There were sleeping children
near the Mohawk River
and stars above the great canal.
I've hauled some barges in my day.
Know every inch along the way.
There was nothing you could say.Chorus
So rock-a-bye now, don't you cry.
I'm gonna sing you a lullaby.
*The Dream Man's coming in his train of cars
with moonbeam windows and with wheels of stars.
So hush you little ones and have no fear.
The man-in-the-moon is the engineer.
The railroad track is a moonbeam bright
that leads right up into the starry night.New York's narrow lakes
look like fingers on a hand.
When the ice retreated, there were deep scars upon the land.
Took a deep breath when we crossed the state line.
The night porter left a bottle of wine.
Waved from my window to the pines.
We rode through the Berkshires in the early hours.
And if I were a painter, I would paint those flowers
in Cadmium Yellow and Phthalo Blue.
But colors run, and flowers fade.
And clouds roll in and cast a shade.
Best call it an even trade.Chorus
The wise Algonquin nation
kept track of the seasons.
They gave each moon a name.
Inching towards the railway station,
minutes from our destination,
seven hundred miles from where we came.
Time moves not by months but moons.
Strawberry is the one for June.
Hidden treasures tangled in the ground.
Harvest in the silver light.
We made our journey through the night.
Rocking on the rails so safe and sound.Chorus
So rock-a-bye now, don't you cry.
I'm gonna sing you a lullaby.
The Dream Man's coming in his train of cars
with moonbeam windows and with wheels of stars.
So hush you little ones and have no fear.
The man-in-the-moon is the engineer.
The railroad track is a moonbeam bright
that leads right up into the starry night.
So rock-a-bye now, don't you cry.
I'm gonna sing you a lullaby.
(repeat to fade)
*Lines from the nursery rhyme "Hush, Here Comes the Dream Man" by R. P. Weston, F. J. Barnes and Maurice Scott (1913).
Credits
Holly Hanson: vocals, background vocals, acoustic guitar
Steve Hayes: acoustic guitar, electric guitar
David Eure: violin
Sven Larson: upright bass
Zeke Martin: percussion
Written by Holly Hanson. © 2011 Wild Braid Music (BMI). All rights reserved. Title track of the album Strawberry Moon by Neptune's Car.
For DJs & Programmers
- Genre
- Contemporary Folk; Singer-Songwriter
- Summary
- A true story: a mother and her two young sons ride the night train east from Indiana through the Berkshires, and she sings them a lullaby. Built around the 1913 nursery rhyme "Hush, Here Comes the Dream Man."
- Themes
- train songs, journey songs, lullabies, mothers and children, new beginnings, moon songs
- Length
- 00:05:26
- Content
- Clean
- Previously aired
- Folk radio. Title track of the album Strawberry Moon, which reached #4 on the FOLK-DJ chart.
- Album
- Strawberry Moon
- Contact Us
- Holly Hanson and Steve Hayes
More Songs
More from the Strawberry Moon album: Lighthouse Keeper, our #1 FOLK-DJ song, and Follow This Highway, a road-trip song about Sedona. For more moon songs, try Full-Moon Night and When the Moon Shines on the Chrome.