Hamilton, Ontario singer-songwriter and guitarist Matty Simpson shares “Boxcar Baby,” a melancholic and introspective folk rock single rooted in empathy, observation, and the quiet resilience of people surviving on the margins. Blending organic roots instrumentation with vivid storytelling, the track paints a portrait of loneliness and perseverance while reflecting on the fragile balance between hardship and hope.

Inspired by real interactions in his neighbourhood, “Boxcar Baby” emerged from Simpson’s reflections on the bottle collectors and unhoused individuals he encountered regularly. “Songwriting is a cathartic experience for me, and events and situations that are happening in my daily life often come out when I’m writing,” he explains. “This song portrays a vagrant type character living in desperation.”

The title itself carries symbolic weight. Drawn from a spontaneous lyrical phrase that surfaced during one of Simpson’s meditative songwriting sessions, “Boxcar Baby” references a Great Depression-era term for train hoppers searching for a better life. “Often lines in songs just come out of me, making up sounds and words in a meditative-like state when playing my guitar,” Simpson says. “When I look back on what I was doing, I can get pieces of the puzzle that I’m putting together.”

1. Tell us the story of this song, why did you choose to visualize this song specifically? 

This song is for the restless wanderers. It’s a tribute to the legends of train hoppers that fought for a better life during the Great Depression. It’s an acknowledgment of the resilience and desperation carried by those hiding out in the dark corners of the world; in the broken buildings and lonely alleys; living in uncertainty, with deep longing and tireless dreams of hope and love.

We chose to visualize this song specifically because the imagery and the lyrics portray a vagrant type character and a very specific time period that we were inspired by in the moment, that we felt we could recreate. Hamilton has a lot of railroads and scenic spots that we could choose from that lent itself to the theme of our video and song. 

2. What was the inspiration behind this video (visuals, storyline, etc.)? 

We wanted to make it look like it was from the time of the Great Depression. We had also just recently watched the movie, “Sinners”, and were inspired by the visuals and wardrobes of that film, which we tried to recreate ourselves the day of the shoot. 

We drove around town and chose the settings that we used because they were exactly what we had imagined when envisioning the background of the video. Hamilton has a lot of beauty and character, which we were able to capture. There are also a lot of train tracks and great spots to choose from for capturing railroad visuals, so we had a lot of fun playing with that. We also wanted to include some older train footage to pay homage to the era we were referencing, as well as keeping with the theme of making the video look like it was from a specific time period. 

3. What was the process of making this video?

We wanted to keep the video low budget, and so we used an iPhone camera to capture the whole video ourselves. We shot it vertically and initially thought it was a mistake, but then chose to run with it and really liked how it turned out. We scoured through old footage of train videos that were from days gone by, that we picked and chose parts of to insert into the video to add some action between scenes and make it more visually exciting. Overall, we are very happy with how the whole thing turned out!