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HIGHLAND LIGHT
Norman Blake

1. All up and down the Blue Ridge Mountain chain they're strippin' coal,
Sellin' it across the sea to Japan, so I'm told.
See the mighty wheels of progress turn and the lanes of commerce run.
A cornucopia of junk it flows from the land of the rising sun.

2. All across this mighty country, friend, the oak trees turn to gold,
But we can't afford our timber; we cannot buy our coal,
'Cause the foreigners want houses, lifestyles like ours they see,
So we trade our own resources for transistorized TV's

3. So get on board the Highland Light, train of my fantasy,
And ride to hell or glory makes no never mind to me.
This train she's not crowded and the ticket there is free,
But it's a long hot dusty ride backwards to 1933.

4. And way down in Alabama, on the old Brown's Ferry shore,
The TVA nuclear reactor sits like a child of war,
Just sending out the kilowatts down the girdered peak-flow lines,
A detriment to society and a threat to all mankind.