Texas 1947 - Guy Clark

Now being 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 and black and smoking

Steam screaming at the wheels

And bigger than anything they is

At least that’s the way she feels

Trains are big and black and smoking

Louder in July four

But everybody’s actin' like

This might be something more

Than just picking up the mail

Or the soldiers from the war

This is something that even old man

Wileman never seen before

And it’s late afternoon

On a hot Texas day

Something strange is going on

And we’s all in the way

Well there’s fifty or sixty people

Just sitting on their cars

And the old men left their dominos

And they come down from the bars

And everybody’s checking

Old Jack Kittrel check his watch

And us kids put our ears

To the rails to hear 'em pop

So we already knowed it

When I finally said, «Train time»

You’d a-thought that Jesus Christ

His-self was rolling down the line

Because things got real quiet

Momma jerked me back

But not before I’d got the chance

To lay a nickel on the track

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, red, and silver

She don’t make no smoke

She’s a fast-rollin' streamline

Come to show the folks

Lord, she never even stopped

But She left fifty or sixty people

Still sitting on their cars

They’re wondering what it’s coming to

And how it got this far

Oh, but me I got a nickel

Smashed flatter than a dime

By a mad dog, runaway

Red-silver streamline