Chris de Burgh, Spanish Train & other stories

Ban in South Africa

The title track is a story about a train carrying the souls of the dead to the Underworld. God and Lucifer are playing Poker gambling with the souls. Lucifer cheats and wins the game. The song finishes with the stanza:

And far away in some recess

The Lord and the Devil are now playing chess,

The Devil still cheats and wins more souls,

And as for the Lord, well, he's just doing his best...

"Spanish Train"

The song was deemed blasphemous in South Africa, and a ban was ordered.

A&M records sued to get the ban overturned the suit was eventually successful. However, while the suit was in progress, A&M released the album under the title Lonely Sky and Other Stories (without "Spanish Train"). This album is considered[according to whom?] a collector's item today[when?] copies are extremely rare. Perversely, the ban only applied to the LP record, so the cassette issue of "Spanish Train" was always freely available.