Ray Davies wrote "The Getaway (Lonesome Train)" from his new album when he went to live in New Orleans in 2000. He says he bought a tape recorder and a Big Chief notepad from the drugstore and started writing songs.
He tells Melissa Block:
Just the sound of where I was staying near the levees -- you had boats, riverboats, I could hear the train coming through town. I'm very inspired and influenced by my surroundings. So the first tones I heard inspired me to write "The Getaway," or "Lonesome Train."
It was a first draft. All the stuff I worked on down there was finished first time round, first draft. You know, I picked up on some of the laziness down there. People do things much more slowly there. And I was becoming like that. "Ah, it works, beginning to end, finish it, don't think about it too much." There is that element.
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