I’m just taking this in a way different direction:

Anyone else weirded out that this song that involves such a Jewish name also involves killing the person with said name — with a blade in the shade — and ‘‘starting a graveyard of my own’’? (At least in one typical version)

Given the reality of, say, the lynching of Leo Frank in Georgia in 1915, that verse creeps me out. And the whole deadly theme in a song about a guy whose name seems probably Jewish just strikes me as... questionable?

I mean it’s a spooky song regardless. I heard it played at a jam and was trying to learn the guitar and lyrics just now when I starting googling this and fell down the rabbit hole. Gotta say, that newspaper clipping quoted above is crazy.

Anyway, maybe it’s about a runaway train, maybe it’s coded antisemitism, certainly it means many things to many people, curious to know what others think.

From your friendly anti-fascist roots music fan -D