Hidden Gem: Train’s “Don’t Grow Up So Fast”

Train may not seem a likely candidate for cutting an incredible country song. Aside from the band’s radio hit “Bruises,” featuring Ashley Monroe, which charted on Hot Country and Country Airplay, they’re toured with Striking Matches (all three are Crush Management). Their latest album, Bulletproof Picasso featured two Nashville-infused cuts, the Matraca Berg co-penned “I’m Drinking Tonight” and the Pat Monahan / Tom Douglas (“The House That Built Me”) track “Don’t Grow Up So Fast.”

Unlike the rest of the album, “Don’t Grow Up So Fast” is stripped instrumentally, with just a simple arpeggiated guitar, accompanied by the occasional delicious squeak of fingers sliding across the fretboard. The ballad is melodically and vocally simple but powerful, yielding to the weight of the lyric.

Lyrically, the chorus is simultaneously nostalgic, collected, and wise: “just don’t grow up so fast, you don’t want to know what I know yet,” Monahan sings. “Maybe on paper it looks better from way up here/ Don’t you hurry, try to take it slow / You will get there before you know it / Ain’t just the bad times, the good times too shall pass / So don’t grow up so fast.” The thought is subtle and stark, “you don’t want to know what I know yet” haunting in its scope of possibility. It seeks simultaneously to caution and comfort, achieving both in the subtle simplicity signature to country writing. The verses too fall on the country side, with specific imagery like “there’s your pencil marks in the corner on the kitchen wall.”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *