About The Song
“Train Leaves Here This Morning” is one of the most haunting deep cuts on the Eagles’ self-titled debut album, released on June 1, 1972 by Asylum Records. The record was produced by Glyn Johns at Olympic Studios in London and went on to reach No. 22 on the Billboard 200 before eventually being certified platinum. While radio focused on hits like “Take It Easy,” “Witchy Woman,” and “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” this slow, shadowy song sat quietly on side two, waiting for listeners who were willing to dig a little deeper.
The story of the track begins a few years earlier, long before the Eagles existed as a band. Singer-songwriter Gene Clark, fresh out of the Byrds, had formed the duo Dillard & Clark with bluegrass banjo player Doug Dillard. Alongside them was a young Bernie Leadon, who co-wrote “Train Leaves Here This Morning” with Clark for their 1968 country-rock album The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard & Clark. That record, cut in Hollywood for A&M, has since been hailed as a pioneering blend of acoustic country, folk and rock, and this song was one of its most enduring moments.
When Leadon later joined the Eagles as a founding member, he brought the song with him. By early 1972 the newly formed group were in London shaping their debut with Glyn Johns, who pushed them to highlight their harmony singing and country roots. They cut a new version of “Train Leaves Here This Morning” with Leadon on lead vocal, banjo and guitar, Randy Meisner anchoring the low harmony and bass, and Glenn Frey and Don Henley filling in the remaining parts. The Eagles’ take stretches the song to just over four minutes, giving it a more spacious, drifting feel than the earlier Dillard & Clark recording.
The lyric reads like fragments from the end of a relationship, told in images rather than straight narrative. The narrator talks about losing “points” just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, signing a contract that was supposed to last a lifetime, and scribbling an address on his sleeve before everything falls apart. A specific street address, 1320 North Columbus, flashes by like a half-remembered postcard. Many listeners and commentators have taken it as a portrait of a marriage or serious love affair collapsing, with the train standing in for the chance to leave town and shed an old life.
Musically, the track moves at an unhurried, almost dreamlike pace. Acoustic guitar and banjo interlock around a gentle rhythm section, while the vocal harmonies rise and fall like someone thinking out loud. Leadon’s delivery is resigned rather than angry, as if the character has already argued every point and finally accepted that departure is the only option left. Johns’ production keeps everything clear and uncluttered, which makes small details—the brush of cymbals, a bend in the vocal line, a banjo figure—feel especially vivid, almost like the little memories you cannot shake after someone is gone.
Although “Train Leaves Here This Morning” was never released as a single and therefore did not appear on the Billboard singles charts, its home album’s success ensured that it reached a wide audience. Over time, the song has drawn particular praise from musicians and hardcore fans. Bluegrass outfit the Seldom Scene cut their own version in 1973, and Gene Clark revisited the tune in later live recordings and deluxe reissues of his solo work, reinforcing its status as one of his key compositions. Writers have described the Eagles version as a beautifully melancholic country number that shows just how strong the band’s roots-oriented side could be.
Today, many listeners regard “Train Leaves Here This Morning” as one of the Eagles’ most underrated tracks, often ranking it alongside more famous songs in personal top-ten lists. It captures a moment when California country-rock was still closely tied to the experiments of former Byrds members like Clark, and when Bernie Leadon’s voice and songwriting had a central place in the group’s sound. If the big hits on Eagles defined the band for the mass audience, this quiet train song reveals another side: introspective, wounded and deeply tied to the country-rock tradition that helped give the band its start.
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Lyric
I lost ten points just for being in the right place
At exactly the wrong time
I looked right at the facts there
But I may as well have been completely blind
So, if you see me walking all alone
Don’t look back, I’m just on my way back home
There’s a train leaves here this morning
I don’t know what I might be on
She signed me to a contract
Baby said, “It would all be so life long”
I looked around then for a reason
When there wasn’t something more to blame it on
But, if time makes a difference while we’re gone
Tell me now and I won’t be hanging on
There’s a train leaves here this morning
I don’t know what I might be on
Ooh, ooh, ooh
Ooh, ooh, ooh
1320 North Columbus was
The address that I wrote down on my sleeve
I don’t know just what she wanted
Might have been that it was getting time to leave
And I watched as the smoker passed it on
And I laughed when the joker said, “Lead on”
‘Cause there’s a train leaves here this morning
And I don’t know what I might be on
There’s train leaves here this morning
And I don’t know what I might be on