Lyr Add: Texas-1947 (Guy Clark)

Subject: Lyr Add: Texas-1947 (Guy Clark)
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 04 May 23 - 01:33 PM

“The Illinois Central Railroad introduced the original City of New Orleans on April 27, 1947.” [wiki]

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Texas-1947 (Guy Clark)
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 07 May 23 - 12:46 AM

“Texas-1947
Bein' six years old
I had seen some trains before
So it's hard to figure out
What I'm at the depot for.

Trains are big n'black n'smokin',
Steam screamin' at the wheels,
Bigger'n anything they is
Least that's the way she feels.

Trains are big n'black n'smokin'
Louder'n July Four
But everybody's acting like
This might be something more
Than just pickin' up the mail
Or the soldiers from the war
Something even ol man Wyman
Never seen before.

And it's a late afternoon
On a hot Texas day
Something strange going on
And we was all in the way.

And there's fifty-sixty people
Just setting on their cars
And the ol' men left their dominoes
And come down from the bars.

And everybody's checking,
Old Jack Kittrell check his watch
And us kids put our ears to the rails
To hear them pop.

So we already knowed it
When they finally said “Train time!”
And you'd have thought that Jesus Christ hisself
Was a-rolling down the line.

'Cause things got real quiet
And mama jerked me back.
But not before I got the chance
To lay a nickel on the track… hooo!

[Chorus]
Look out here she comes!
She's coming!
Look out there she goes!
She's gone!
Screaming straight through Texas
Like a mad dog cyclone
Big and red and silver
She don't make no smoke
She's a fast rolling streamline
Come to show the folk.

I said look out here she comes!
She's coming!
Look out there she goes!
She's gone!
Screaming straight through Texas
Like a mad dog cyclone.

Lord. She never even stopped.

But she left fifty-sixty people
Still settin' on their cars
Wondering what it's coming to
And how it got this far
But me, I got a nickel
Smashed flatter than a dime
By a mad dog
Runaway
Red-silver, streamline... train

[Chorus]
[Guy Clark, Old No.1, RCA APL1-1303, 1975, trk.B1]

Also covered by Johnny Cash, along with The City of New Orleans and ten other railroad songs and flogged to heckens by the now defunct Victoria Station train themed restaurant chain.