Stop This Train

It’s definitely the most emotionally confrontational [song on Continuum]. Time is moving forward all the time and we know that, but it’s like running out of a continually burning hallway, and you can’t go back and get your stuff, and all I want to do is yell “I want to go get my stuff!” And people go, “you can’t. Keep running!” This fireball’s coming up behind you. It’s not exactly as Indiana Jones as that, but it feels like that sometimes. Stop This Train is a song begging to go back. I played it for my parents and they pretended not to hear any of the lines, which I think is pretty much trademark parents.

It was actually a really good friend of mine, James Valentine from the band Maroon 5, who came in and helped play some acoustic guitar on this song.

'Stop this Train' was a magic moment for me. I was in between homes and living in a hotel room. I had double kidney stones at the same time. I had nothing to do but medicate, get CAT scans, and hang out in the hotel room. That gave me a whole bunch of time to sit and play guitar and look out the window. There is something to be said about solitary confinement, or as I say, solitary refinement.

I brought this up to a few people and they go, “no that's not true," because they don't want to think that it's true but it might be true. That I might no longer possess the kind of psychic energy necessary to write something like "Stop This Train." I'm not sure that I would sit in a room alone and write twelve verses for a song with that much intention, with that much need to create, with that much fire.