Meet Virginia

by

Train

Album: Train

Released: 1998

Charted:

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This was Train's first single. It took about a year and a half to catch on because no one knew about the band. Many radio stations were still playing it when they released their next album, Drops Of Jupiter, 3 years later.

Train did not have a record deal when they released the album. Columbia Records, who had previously rejected the band, picked them up after this was released.

The album cost $25,000 to make. The group paid for it themselves.

This song was inspired at least partially by one of Pat Monahan's friends, who according to Pat, would make up all these stories about stuff that Pat supposedly did. Pat says the song isn't supposed to be about one woman, but rather, several people.

Rebecca Gayheart plays the role of "Virginia" in the video.

At a sold-out show in San Francisco, Pat told the audience at one point during the show that the song they'd be playing next was "a new song, that you've probably never heard before" - and the band broke into "Meet Virginia," met by cheering.

Before they got nice big comfy tour buses, Train toured in a van that has caught on fire twice. (thanks, Meg - B, Canada, for above 4)

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Comments (16):

This song will always take me back to the age of 16, driving around in my ex-boyfriend Blake's blue truck. I hear the first few lines, and I can't help but close my eyes, take a deep breath, and look back on my teenage years. The cold Wisconsin air, the shift of the truck changing gears, him holding my hand as I sang this song under my breath....everywhere we went, we would hear this song. It reminds me of a guy falling for a girl when she is obviously less than perfect. He sees the beauty in all of her little quirks, and thinks they're all beautiful. Blake always managed to make me feel like I was someone important, and someone beautiful, and although I was different from a lot of girls my age, there was nothing wrong with that. That's what he loved about me. I will always treasure this song and it will always take me back to a time I will never forget :)

- Terry, Grafon, WI

A song can mean 100 things to 100 very different
people but this song really touches me.
I'd have to say it's one of my favorites.

Well she wants to be the queen
Then she thinks about her scene
Pulls her hair back as she screams
I dont really wanna be the queen

This part of the song creates a image
in my head that says "Hay, this is a girl with
really low self easteam and her past doesn't help it."

I think Train did a amazing job with this song.
I love it.

- Jessie, Saldotna, AK

This Song Makes me think of a friend or old friend Kelsey...

He loves her for everything but she doesn't love herself...

She wants things she can't have but the people and things aren't her and she knows it... dispite it all and all her imperfections and qurks. she's beutiful. The writer loves her

- Matt, Ashland, VA

I think that this song is about his imagined ideal girl. She's all these fabulous and sort of quirky things, but he is realistic too - he knows girls are sometimes frustrated and unhappy, but he loves that nonetheless. He "can't wait to Meet Virginia." She his ideal woman. Maybe she is an amalgam of women he's known or just things he'd have in a woman if he could design her.

- Kim, Norfolk , VA

This song is like something said by a man who really loves a girl for everything she does and doesn't do. It might be because I'm a writer, but I can see clear pictures of the couple, and her, and just everything. I get goosebumps listening to this!

- Mickey, Mars, PA

This song is amazing.. it makes me wanna cry because it's so beautiful... and so damn true.

we all can relate

- Renee, New York, NY

This is song is amazing.. I first heard it when my sister played it to me about 3 years ago and I just came across it again recently.. I love the way this guy describes this girl, it's obvious he loves her deeply... its a good song to relate to when you're having a (deleted) day... lovee it!!
-Lorena, Melbourne, AUS

- Lorena, Melbourne, Australia

Meet Virginia,? from Train?s first album, also inspires some unusual images about a woman who ?wears high heels when she exercises? and ?only drinks coffee at midnight.? This song, Monahan said, came from some of the ?interesting? people he?d met. ?I was new to San Francisco and I actually watched a woman play baseball in high heels and a long dress. I saw how confident women were, but also how self-conscious they were. It?s difficult to be a woman. I have incredible respect for women and the struggles they have in this man?s world. I was raised by an incredible woman and I?m in love with an incredible woman and I watch my daughter. It?s tough sometimes, I think, for a woman to be herself and want to be special but not really want to be the queen of anything - just herself - and not apologize for it. A woman friend of mine told me that the song always made her feel like she was allowed to think of herself as beautiful.? Now this was a quote straight from http://www.songwriteruniverse.com/train-123.htm. I totally agree, I have meet some great woman out there and I know as a indepent woman, its hard to live in this "man's wold" but I love how this song describes it! I love this song. I, along with every other woman out there have a lil Virgina inside too! So just keep beig you, no matter who stands in your way!

- Mandie, Spokane, WA

Those lyrics are pretty amusing.

- Stefanie, Rock Hill, SC

Aw, I love this song! It always makes me think of my friend Stephanie from junior high- it was her favorite song at the time. The lyrics are so amusing- "She smokes a pack a day, wait that's me, but anyway..."

- Valerie, Evansville, IN

Kate from san diego, I think i agree with your interpretation of the song. i first heard it when my sister was listening to it. I think she knew about the song before it really caught on. My sister's name is Ursula though, not virginia.

- Stefanie magura, Rock Hill, SC

i think the song is kinda obviously about a sad, eccentric girl

when she says she "i dont really wanna live this life"
i think shes either contemplating suicide or stuck in a life she doesnt want but doesnt know how to fix it

the narrator is in love with her despite her problems

this is my fav song

- kate, san diego, United States

I forgot to mention my mom's name...you guessed it, Virginia!

- Jim, South Bend, IN

I think "Meet Virginia" was about my mom. I don't know how they knew her, but get this. She and I used to sit and rip on President Clinton all the time. She drank coffee late at night and I could never understand how she could sleep. She had severe scoliosis so her spine was actually shaped like an "S", (the shape of her body - unusual). "I don't really want to live this life", (here is the weird part), she died October 15, 1998, after a long illness, three days before I heard the song for the very first time. It had just hit the top 40 in South Bend.

- Jim, South Bend, IN

On Storytellers, Pat (the lead singer) said that he wrote this song about how beautiful women are without make up, and how he loves imperfection.

- shawn, loganville, GA

This song is about a girl who wants to be something that she is actually is not and then she relizes what she wants to do is actually not what she wants to do.

- Keri, Lansing, MI

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