Introduction
A fast train of longing and resolve—Dwight Yoakam’s “Smoke Along the Track” carries the old drifter creed into the neon ’80s, all shuffle and steel, where goodbye sounds honest and the horizon still calls your name.
Let’s set the anchors right up front. “Smoke Along the Track” is an album cut on Hillbilly Deluxe—Yoakam’s second Reprise LP—released July 7, 1987. On the vinyl it sits side A, track 2, running about 3:13; Yoakam cut it with producer/guitarist Pete Anderson as one of the album’s three covers. The song itself isn’t a Yoakam original: it was written by Alan Rose and Don Helms (Hank Williams’s famed steel player) and first issued by Stonewall Jackson in 1959—as the B-side to his smash “Waterloo”—where it reached No. 24 on the U.S. country chart. Yoakam didn’t release his version as a single, so there’s no standalone chart peak for his cut; the album did the lifting, hitting No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums. Those are the ledger facts that tell you where to file the record on your shelf.
A little context sweetens the picture. Hillbilly Deluxe was Yoakam’s quick follow-up to Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc., a sophomore set that doubled down on the Bakersfield grammar—snapping Telecasters, high-and-lonesome harmony, drums that walk more than they stomp. In sequencing the LP, he places “Smoke Along the Track” right after the opener “Little Ways,” as if to say: here’s the creed behind the swagger. With Tom Brumley’s pedal steel sighing and Anderson’s guitar answering in short, conversational phrases, the band wraps Yoakam’s vocal in air and room tone rather than gloss—classic late-’80s Yoakam, all edges intact. The album’s official track list and credits bear this out; it’s the same ensemble that took the record to the top of the country albums chart.
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Before Yoakam ever sang it, though, the song had a life of its own. Stonewall Jackson’s original rides that mid-century rail romanticism—the man who loves the road almost as much as the woman he’s leaving. As the flip of “Waterloo,” it was everywhere in 1959, even if it only grazed the top quarter of the country chart; plenty of kitchen radios learned both sides by heart. Yoakam’s version honors that lineage without imitating it: he trims the arrangement, leans the groove forward, and lets his voice carry the ache in plain talk. The writing credit to Rose/Helms is consistent across reliable discographies; if you hear a little Hank-school steel in the bones, you’re not imagining things.
What’s the story behind Yoakam choosing this tune in 1987? Partly, it’s his ongoing conversation with the roots that raised him. On Hillbilly Deluxe he tips his hat to Elvis (“Little Sister”) and Lefty Frizzell (“Always Late with Your Kisses”), then reaches back to Stonewall for a song about leaving because you have to—one of country music’s most durable myths. And the choice stuck: when Yoakam hit the Austin City Limits stage on October 23, 1988, he put “Smoke Along the Track” second in the set, a keeper captured on Live from Austin, TX. If you remember that telecast glow on a living-room console, you remember the way the band settled into a pocket you could have driven all night in.
Meaning? It’s the wanderer’s oath, sung without apology. The narrator doesn’t villainize the person he’s leaving, and he doesn’t martyr himself either. He just admits that the same restlessness that once brought him to love now points him toward the next town’s lights. Yoakam delivers that confession like a man who’s learned how to tell the truth softly: no theatrics, no self-pity—just the knowledge that some hearts live by motion, and the best they can offer is honesty and a clean goodbye. For older ears, that restraint is what makes the record land. Life teaches you that freedom, love, and regret don’t cancel one another out; they coexist, and grown-up music leaves room for all three in the same chorus.
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Listen for the tactile details that make this cut endure. Doug-steady drums that lope instead of lunge; bass lines that move like headlights on a two-lane; steel phrases that answer the vocal like an old friend who knows when to keep quiet. Yoakam’s phrasing keeps circling the title image—the train’s plume drawing a moving line between what was and what will be. That’s the old country alchemy: turning geography into emotion. No surprise he kept the song close onstage; some pieces just fit a singer’s stride.
For the scrapbook you keep next to the turntable: Artist: Dwight Yoakam. Song: “Smoke Along the Track.” Album: Hillbilly Deluxe (Reprise, July 7, 1987), track 2, 3:13; producer: Pete Anderson; personnel highlights on the album include Tom Brumley (pedal steel), Greg Leisz (lap steel), Skip Edwards (piano). Single? No—album cut. Album peak: Billboard Top Country Albums No. 1. Songwriters: Alan Rose & Don Helms. Original version: Stonewall Jackson, 1959 B-side to “Waterloo,” U.S. Country No. 24. And the feeling that stays when the needle lifts? A quiet nod to the truth that some of us love one person for life—and some of us love the road—and the best we can do is say it plain and keep the train on time.