“One Way Track” was written by Ricky Skaggs and Wes Golding. Boone Creek recorded it as the opening track and title song of their 1978 album One Way Track (Sugar Hill SH 3701), made at Lemco Sound Studio in Lexington, Kentucky. On that session Skaggs sang lead, with Golding on the chorus vocal, and the band was Golding on guitar, Terry Baucom on banjo, Skaggs on mandolin and fiddle, Jerry Douglas on dobro and Steve Bryant on bass.
The lyric is a breakup song built on a railroad picture. The singer’s sweetheart has left that morning, the whistle blows as she goes, and he calls on the engineer to bring her back. He says he is headed down a one-way track, and one-way tracks do not turn back.
The song stayed in other bands’ repertoires: the Knoxville Grass included it on Evolution (Thunderhead, 1979), and Chesapeake recorded it for Full Sail (Sugar Hill, 1995). Skaggs recorded it again with Kentucky Thunder, with Clay Hess on guitar, Jim Mills on banjo, Andy Leftwich on fiddle and Mark Fain on bass, for the 2001 album History of the Future (Skaggs Family).
