About This Song

Old Train was written by Herb Pedersen and Nikki Pedersen. The Seldom Scene recorded it first and made it the title track of their 1974 Rebel album Old Train. Tony Rice cut it again as the opening track of Manzanita (Rounder, 1979), and players learn it from both records.

The chart above is in F. The verse is eight bars and almost every bar splits between two chords. It starts 1 to flat 7, then 4 to 5, and that phrase runs twice. The flat 7 also shows up in the four-bar kickoff, so it's worth having under your fingers before you start. The chorus starts on the 4 instead of the 1 and keeps moving between the 4 and the 5. A 2 shows up near the middle, and the chorus ends on two full bars of the 4 before the verse comes back to the 1.

Jambuster: The chords change fast and often, with fourteen split bars. The flat 7 and the 2 are outside the usual 1, 4 and 5. The chorus is an odd ten bars long. It also has one six-beat bar (4, 5, then 1 held for four beats), and anyone counting in fours will come in early there. Learn the chorus cold and walk everyone through it before you count it off.