"Trains and Boats and Planes" is a song written by composer Burt Bacharach and lyricist Hal David.
According to writer Serene Dominic, [the Breakaways'] dispassionate delivery blends perfectly with Hal David's haunted verses, which give all the responsibility for coming and going to the transportation and not the passengers ...
Trains and boats and planes are capable of bringing back someone they took away, if the person they left behind prays hard enough for their return.
Other, less commercially successful, versions were issued in the UK around the same time by Anita Harris and Alma Cogan, and recordings were made in French by Claude François and Renée Martel ("Quand un bateau passe").
[1][4] Within the same year, a German language version, ("Frag doch nur dein Herz") was recorded by Die Five Tops.
[12] Other recordings include those by Chet Baker (1966), The Everly Brothers, the Box Tops, The Shadows (instrumental), Joanie Sommers, Dinah Shore (all in 1967), Astrud Gilberto (1969), Fred Frith (1997), Fountains of Wayne (2003), Gwyneth Herbert and Will Rutter on their 2003 album First Songs, Dwight Yoakam (2003), and Laura Cantrell on her 2008 EP Trains and Boats and Planes.