Lyr Req: Freight Train: not DT version

Subject: Lyr Req: Freight Train: not DT version
From: Mr Happy
Date: 15 Jan 03 - 07:25 PM

Hi folks!

Looking for other verses to 'Freight Train'. The version in DT isn't what I'm seeking.

Verses I have already go:

'Don't know where he's heading for,
What he's done against the law,
All I know he's got no hope,
There's nothing but the rope'

Cheers,

Mr H

Subject: Lyr Add: FREIGHT TRAIN (from Rusty Draper)
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 15 Jan 03 - 10:52 PM

FREIGHT TRAIN (As sung by Rusty Draper)

Freight train, freight train, goin' so fast
Freight train, freight train, goin' so fast
I don't know what train he's on
Won't you tell me where he's gone

Don't know where he's headin' for
What he's done against the law
Got no future, got no hope
Just nothin' but the rope

Freight train, freight train, goin' so fast
Freight train, freight train, goin' so fast
I don't know what train he's on
Won't you tell me where he's gone

He lost his reason, lost his life
He killed his friend in mortal strife
He must have moved like the golden skies
Just a-waitin' 'til he dies

Freight train, freight train, goin' so fast
Freight train, freight train, goin' so fast
I don't know what train he's on
Won't you tell me where he's gone

When he dies, just bury him please
Way down the end of old Chestnut Street
Poplars at his head and feet
And tell them he's gone to sleep

Freight train, freight train, goin' so fast
Freight train, freight train, goin' so fast
I don't know what train he's on
Won't you tell me where he's gone

I think these are the lyrics you're looking for.
Peace, Rustic

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Freight Train: not DT version
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 15 Jan 03 - 11:01 PM

I am wondering if This is the song Mr.Happy?
Rustic
Sorry about up there no space between lyrics and comment but no big deal anyway!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Freight Train: not DT version
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 03:22 AM

Wow! The first song I ever learned to accompany with the guitar, nearly forty years ago! I still can't play it properly ... That's the version Nancy Whiskey did with the Chas McDevitt skiffle group (Roger take note!) around 1957. Did Rusty Draper write it, or is it trad?

Steve

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Freight Train: not DT version
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 04:28 AM

...adapted from Libba Cotton's original, of course. Pete (Steve Benbow's Protege)is in touch with Chas McDevitt & may be able to add more about his version - I've just had a quick flick through his (Chas')book (called "Skiffle" of course) and can't see any history of their version- he did call a later incarnation of his group the Freight Train Boys and mentions a copyright dispute over the song (and claims Nancy Whiskey left the group declaring she hated skiffle).

RtS

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Freight Train: not DT version
From: Steve Benbows protege
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 10:13 AM

Roger, Will try and dig about and see what I can find. I am giging with Benbow on sunday and Steve sings it as well. I will check his version 'cause he worked with Chas on T.V and he still sometimes gigs with him! Also Steve's old partner Denny Wright has Donnigans guitar man!! I will get onto that but might take some time.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Freight Train: not DT version
From: Mr Happy
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 10:51 AM

Rustic Rebel,


YES!! That's the one!

Much gratitude to you!

Cheers,

Mr Happy

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Freight Train: not DT version
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 18 Jan 03 - 11:25 AM

I've just listened to the Libba Cotton version on a Newport Folk Festival compilation I have. It was between 1963-1966 (they don't date individual tracks) so she'd be in her 70s (died aged 95 in 1987 if the sleeve notes are correct).
Though her guitar fingering is as nimble as ever, her version is 3 verses only and the voice sounds a little weak:

When I'm dead and in my grave
No more good times will I crave
Place a stone at my head and feet
And tell them all that I've gone to sleep.

When I'm dead, Lord bury me deep
Right at the end of Chestnut Street
So I can't* hear old 99
As she goes rolling by.

Then verse three merges first part of verse two with second part of verse one thus:)

When I'm dead, Lord bury me deep
Way down on old Chestnut Street
Place a stone at my head and feet
And tell them all thatI've gone to sleep.

*could be "can"

RtS

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Freight Train: not DT version
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 18 Jan 03 - 11:40 AM

Elizabeth (Libba) Cotten-1896-1987.
She wrote this song when she was 12 years old. Now I think that is pretty cool.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Freight Train: not DT version
From: Rincon Roy
Date: 19 Jan 03 - 05:34 AM

Elizabeth Cotten & Mike Seger shared the bill on concert in Tucson. She introduced Freight Train with interesting story of how she came to write it. Can't remember the details of the story, but my memory can replay her voice and the sound of her left-handed upside down guitar clear enough. (& is "can")

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Freight Train: not DT version
From: Steve Benbows protege
Date: 19 Jan 03 - 12:59 PM

Roger, that is the version I learnt when I first picked up the guitar. I will however, ask Chas or Rick when I next see them.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Freight Train: not DT version
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 19 Jan 03 - 08:26 PM

These are the lyrics I recall (Rustic Rebel; above). "Lyr Add" header added.

Nigel

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Freight Train: not DT version
From: GUEST,honeydhont
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 09:12 PM

Surprisingly, Chass McDevitt recorded Freight Train first, even before Libby Cotton herself. There's an enteresting shortstory on this and her life in general at this link: http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues00/oct00/object_oct00.html
An excerpt: "One afternoon Peggy Seeger heard Cotten singing "Freight Train" and asked to learn it. At the time, Ruth (Peggy's mother) was compiling a collection of children's folk songs and included one by Cotten. Encouraged, Cotten began to put together more new songs and, with the Seegers' help, began occasionally singing and playing in public.

In the mid-1950s, a grown-up Peggy Seeger sang "Freight Train" during a concert tour in England, and the song was soon recorded — without permission or credit — by a British singer (McDevitt). It became a hit in Britain, and the furor over the songwriting credit and royalties helped create a demand for Libba Cotten's music. Her first album, "Negro Folksongs and Tunes," was cut in 1958 on the Folkways label, which the Smithsonian Institution acquired in 1987."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Freight Train: not DT version
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 25 Mar 04 - 11:19 AM

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Freight Train: not DT version
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 25 Mar 04 - 11:27 AM

Peggy didn't just sing it in concert, she would play it regularly at her guitar classes in the late 50's and it was the one thing that we all wanted to play, they called it (the picking style) "claw-hammer guitar" then.
Just as interesting was /is a similar tune of Elizabeth's in the same style without vocals called Wilson Rag. Took me even longer to pick that one up.