What is this song about ghost towns, trains, and murderous barbers?

October 20, 2013 11:48 AM

Last year, I was at a Hallowe'en party and heard a song that I liked. Unfortunately, it was playing on a seasonal streaming radio station and hasn't proved easy to Google, so I never did get an artist or title for it. A year later, it's still haunting me - or my inability to look it up is. The song was in English, likely recorded in the 21st century, and sung by a man. I think it had an acoustic Americana sound. From what I can remember, it involved a traveller arriving in an unsettling town by the railway tracks, upon which ran a ghost train. The man goes to the local barber's for a haircut and a shave, and the song culminates with the barber cutting his throat just as the train blows its whistle. I believe the final implication was that the traveller was now riding the ghost train, or was now a resident of the ghost town. Despite the involvement of a barber, there were no explicit references to Sweeney Todd. Does this ring a bell for anyone?
posted by northernish to Media & Arts (2 answers total)

Best answer: Headstarts - Ghost Train? (Never heard it before; I just googled lyrics, ghost, train and barber.)
posted by sively at 12:14 PM on October 20, 2013 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: That is it! Apparently, if you add "town" or "throat" or "whistle" to that search string, as I was doing by turn, you get squat despite those words being in the lyrics. Thank you very much.
posted by northernish at 12:42 PM on October 20, 2013