Last Train - Gathering Dust - Ghost Dance

From the 2005 remastered CD. Originally released 15th February 1988.
"Let the dust form and cover my tracks" - the opening line of the classic 'Last Train'. The first time I met the band they were doing some demos in a cheap Leeds studio and they played that song. My face melted. I knew then I had to work with them. Featured here with ten other vintage Ghost Dance tracks from their deleted back catalogue, they prove an embarrassment of riches. I had the good fortune to work as producer on most of these songs. I was always there in spirit, but I stake no claim to the music - it was meant for you - take it to your hearts. "Take me anywhere but home". - Bill Spectre
"Etch also had a hand in the writing of Last Train although he didn’t know it. When I’d first met him I’d conducted a sort of audition in the garden shed at my girlfriend’s parents house - I’d asked him to play bits and pieces that I’d got and then asked him if he had any songs himself. He’d played the usual assortment of prog-rock bollocks he liked but also a riff which sort of became the verse to Last Train through osmosis. I wrote the song at a later date without any reference to his idea, but found I’d used a similar progression so his little lick worked perfectly with it. I hadn’t knowingly ripped it off, if anything I was ripping myself off with obvious similarities between it and Celebrate. The lyric took shape over a period of time - we first played the song live in Coventry in January ’86. I was so chuffed with the music that I convinced Anne Marie to sing it with a lyric I was still finishing in the van on the way down.
I don’t remember all the lines but the opening was different: ‘all this talk is going nowhere, round in circles haven’t you heard, tomorrow’s calling…’ I much prefer the finished, ‘let the dust form and cover my tracks..’ Although the train/tracks imagery is used (and again there’s a hint of romance in the lyric on face value here and there) what I had in mind when I as writing the words was me and a group of mates going out when we were about 17, getting completely smashed and tearing up the back-roads in the villages around Hull surfing on the roof of a battered old mini doing 70 mph, hanging on for dear life. That feeling you get when you don’t give a shit what you do as long as the night and the feeling doesn’t have to end". - Gary Marx
Let the dust form and cover my tracks
Just keep on walking, never look back
Tomorrow’s calling, hear the sirens wail
Shadows falling, coming down like rain
On the last train
Riding the weather
On the last train
My idea of heaven’s when I hear that whistle blow
A kiss too late goodbye
All aboard let’s go
And leave yesterday behind
In the morning will things still look the same
Come the dawn and the cold light of day
When the euphoria starts to subside
I wonder who’s been taken for a ride
On the last train
Headlong together
On the last train
Hell-bent for leather
Where I’m bound I don’t know
Ask me if I care
Let that whistle blow
Take me anywhere, anywhere but home
Tomorrow’s calling
I’ve gotta get away
Shadows falling
Coming down again
On the last train
Headlong together
On the last train
Hell-bent for leather
Where I’m bound I don’t know
Ask me if I care
Let that whistle blow
Take me anywhere
On the last train, on the last train…
Anne Marie - vocals
Etch - bass
Gary Marx - guitars
Pandora - drums
Richard Steel - guitars
Produced by Richard Mazda in August 1986.
Artwork by Neil Muckle.

[@stevebullman4698]

Wish'd I'd known there had been a CD of this. Got the vinyl, but would love to get a CD copy.