Coming Home

Steel Rail

Coming Home is Steel Rail's latest album, released on May 23, 2020. The 12-song album was produced at Montreal's Fast Forward Studios by Dave Clarke and Bill Garrett, who produced Steel Rail's first album, A Thousand Miles of Snow.

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Album tracks

1.     (Just) Waiting for a Train (Clarke, 3:12). Dave was standing at the platform at Guildwood Station in Toronto waiting for the Montreal-bound train to arrive when this song came to him. 

2.     When Are You Coming  Home (Clarke-Shizgal, 4:16). Near the end of Dave and Lucinda’s nine-year stint in Western Canada, Ellen began this song. When they finally did return to Montreal, Dave helped finish the plaintive melody.  

3.     Rain (Chodan-Shizgal, 2:50). A quiet night and the peaceful sound of the rain coming down. 

4.     The Last Time (Gorr-Shizgal, 4:03).  Tod’s country roots show on this waltz-time ballad, whose lyrics were penned with Ellen’s help.  

5.     Winter Wren (Shizgal, 2:33). A bluegrass-leaning ode to letting go. 

6.     Darkest Night (Clarke, 3:19). More country-inflected melancholy, this time from Dave. 

7.     Argyle Street (Chodan-Clarke, 3:38). Celtic music meets bluegrass in this song about a night in the bars that line Argyle Street in Halifax. 

8.     Flow River Flow (Chodan-Clarke, 3:14). Dave and Lucinda’s ode to leaving Montreal for Victoria, B.C., not knowing when they’d be back.  

9.     Once in a While (Shizgal, 4:06). A waltz about love that lasts. 

10.  If By Midnight (Chodan-Clarke, 2:41). The most bluegrassy tune on the album invokes the long drive from Boston to the Laurentians. 

11.  Kate’s Song (Shizgal, 5:01). Ellen began this song in 2010, after watching a video of Kate McGarrigle’s last performance and later the footage of the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti. 

12. Paper Girl (Clarke, 3:21). The album’s only instrumental is a kinder, gentler kind of bluegrass that features Dave’s fluid picking and the warm sound of his 1938 Martin D-18.

Guest musicians 

Beatrice Ferreira, viola
Gilles Leclerc, mandolin
Joel Zifkin, fiddle (9, 11)
Josh Zubot, fiddle (2,4,10)