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Song lyrics on these pages only for the purpose of study, review, critical analysis or as a courtesy to the majority of people in the world whose mother tongue is not English. Any copyrighted material on these pages is used in "fair use," for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s).
Thinking of Home
Songs about home, sung by an exile. Home is not only a place, but also people, those who came before und those who will carry on when we are gone, those we love. Home is language, music and ways of life. Home is the freedom to be who we are. But above all home is where we belong, where we ought to be.
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Side 1
Missouri Road Song
guitar. vocal, John Shreve
guitar, Bernd Beusmann
bass, Beate Sieker
Always a Train in My Dreams
guitar. vocal, John Shreve
guitar, Bernd Beusmann
bass, Beate Sieker
banjo, Rolf Sieker
Across the Great Divide
guitar, vocal, John Shreve
guitar, Bernd Beusmann
Starlight on the Rails
guitar, vocal, John Shreve
guitar, vocal. Jan van Roosendaal
bass, Beate Sieker
banjo, Rolf Sieker
Johnny Hard
vocal, John Shreve
guitar, Jan van Roosendaal
bass, Beate Sieker
banjo, Rolf Sieker
I Pity the Poor Immigrant
vocal, John Shreve
guitar, Jan van Roosendaal
bass. Beate Sieker
keyboard, Rolf Sieker
Stepstone
guitar, vocal, John Shreve
guitar, Bernd Beusmann
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Side 2
Little Birdie
vocal, John Shreve
Planter‘s Bar
guitar, vocal, John Shreve
guitar, vocal, Jan van Roosendaal
banjo, Rolf Sieker
The Ones Who Made Home
vocal, John Shreve
guitar, Jan van Roosendaal
Gone, Gonna Rise Again
guitar. vocal, John Shreve
guitar Jan van Roosendaal
Circles
lead vocal, J. Shreve
guitar. vocal, John Shreve
bass, Beate Sieker
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Oh, good morning, Missouri, and how have you been?
I've driven all night just to see you again
And there's thunder behind me and plenty of wind
And the mountains ahead where I'm going
This ragged old car says hello to you, too;
It's been many a mile since first we were through
Just a couple of drifters with nothing to do
But to go where the wind was a-blowing.
Your cornfields lie waiting in the sweet summer sun
To bring back the life winter took on the run
And it's westward through small towns with a song to be sung.
Just a child of the open road.
Oh, good morning, Missouri, the sun's at my back;
There's the sound of a horn of a fast-rolling Mack
As it runs up behind, as it burns down the track,
Just a-chasing the shadow before it.
There's a feeling inside says I wish I could stay,
But there's songs to be sung and there's places to play,
And there's plenty of time on some other old day
To share one, maybe two, and remember.
The dark of the night lifts away with the dawn;
The fools on the road will be out before long,
And the birds in the fields lift to flight with a song,
My song of the open road.
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Always a Train in my Dreams
Steve Gillette ; Charles John Quarto
click here for lyrics
The history of the railroad in the United States began when the first British-built locomotive, the „Stourbridge Lion,“ arrived in New York City on May 13, 1829. In the following year, the first American-built locomotive, the „Best Friend of Charleston,“ was put into service. For a country of such dimensions, the rails were of particular importance. In the middle of the 18th century, a trip from New York to Philadelphia took three days. To reach New Orleans, one needed three months.
Eighty years later, little had changed. By 1835, though, 200 railroad companies had been founded and nearly a thousand miles of track had been completed. Five years later, nearly three thousand miles of track had been laid, more than in all of Europe. The railroad reached Chicago, destined to become the hub of the nation’s rail system, in 1852 and the Mississippi River on February 22, 1854.
Railroad construction proceeded apace, especially in the industrial North, a fact which during the Civil War contributed to the superiority of the Union. By the time the war broke out, more than half the world’s rail lines were in the northern states of the United States. It would not be too much of an exaggeration to say that the railroad created the United States. As long as communication remained slow, the US was a confederation of states. Regionalism remained a strong force and was one of the principle causes of the Civil War. It was during the era of Civil War that it first became common to say „the United States is“ instead of „the United States are.“ The golden age of the railroad in the United States was from the Civil War until about 1930.
In 1862, Abraham Lincoln, who had begun his political career by supporting railroad construction, signed a law providing for the construction of a transcontinental rail line. Before the war, the North-South conflict had prevented any agreement on a route across the continent. During the previous two decades, the United States had extended its borders from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean. California had become a state in 1850, but until the completion of the first transcontinental railway in 1869, it had remained, physically speaking, a distant outpost which could only be reached after a long, arduous overland journey or by ship, either by sailing around the tip of South America or to Panama, walking over the isthmus and catching another ship.
The men who built the first transcontinental railway from East to West were mainly veterans of the Civil War, men from both armies, „with little or nothing to go home to.“ (Nothing Like It in the World. The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869, Stephen E. Ambrose. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000. p. 137.) Many were of Irish extraction. At least three hundred former slaves were also employed. (Nothing Like It in the World. p. 177.) Many of the civil engineers and construction bosses were former Union officers. From the west coast, it was, despite racial prejudices, Chinese laborers who did the work. By 1865, seven thousand Chinese were working for the Central Pacific Railroad alongside two thousand whites.
The railroad opened up the West for settlement and natural resource exploitation. Dee Brown wrote that, „only the demonic power of the Iron Horse and its bands of rails could conquer the West...“ (Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow. The Epic Story of the Transcontinental Railroads, Dee Brown. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1977. p. 3.)
By the 1880s. railroad construction became a way to get rich. Many lines were built for the purpose of financial exploitation rather than to meet any transportation need. The railroad companies gained political power, subsidized or owned hundreds of newspapers, and controlled or bribed reporters. They became involved in all elections, from the local to the natiional level and boasted openly of having elected James A. Garfield president, a man who had been involved in a financial fraud in connection with the building of the Union Pacific Railroad. Controlling local and national governments, the railroads lived virtually free of taxes. This power gave rise to farmers‘ organizations like the National Grange, which fought to curb the power of the railroads and in the end was crushed by them.
When the United States entered the First World War, however, the railroads and their equipment were in such a dilapidated condition that the government had to take them over and rebuild them in order to meet wartime transportation needs. After the war, the newly refurbished rail system was returned to private owners, who then had the audacity to demand more than a billion dollars compensation for losses they claimed to have incurred.
In 1920, 2.1 million people were employed by the railroads and in 1930, almost 300,000 miles of track tied the country together.
Despite the excesses of the railroad companies, the railroad stood for freedom, which was equated with movement and became an integral part of the American myth. The engineers were folk heroes, the accidents – and there were many in the early years – were the subject of numerous ballads. It is said the rhythm of the railroad is the rhythm of American music.
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Across the Great Divide
Kate Wolf
click here for lyrics
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I can hear the whistle blowing,
High and lonesome as can be,
Outside the rain is softly falling,
Tonight it's falling just for me.
(chorus)
Looking back along the road I've traveled,
The miles could tell a million tales,
Each year is like a rolling freight train,
And cold as starlight on the rails.
I think about a wife and family,
My home and all the things it means;
The black smoke trailing out behind me
Is like a string of broken dreams.
(chorus)
A man who lives out on the highway
Is like a clock that can't tell time;
A man who spends his life just ramblin'
Is like a song without a rhyme.
(chorus)
Starlight on the Rails
Utah Phillips: “This comes from reading Thomas Wolfe. He had a very deep understanding of the music in language. Every now and then he wrote something that stuck in my ear and would practically demand to be made into a song.
„I think that if you talk to railroad bums, or any kind of bum, you‘ll see that what affects them the most is homelessness, not necessarily rootlessness. Travelling is all right if you have a place to go from and a place to go to. It‘s when you don‘t have any place that it becomes more difficult. There‘s nothing you can count on in the world, except yourself. And if you‘re an old blown bum, you can‘t even do that very well. I guess this is a home song as much as anything else.“ (Utah Phillips, Starlight on the Rails & Other Songs. P. 60.)
“We walked along a road in Cumberland and stooped, because the sky hung down so low; and when we ran away from London, we went by little rivers in a land just big enough. And nowhere we went was far: the earth and the sky were close and near. And the old hunger returned - that terrible ans obscure hunger that haunts and hurts Americans, and makes us exiles at home and strangers wherever we go.
“Oh, I went go up and down the country and back and forth across the country. I will go out West where the states are square. I will go to Boise and Helena, Albuquerque and the two Dakotas and all the unknown places. Say brother, have you heard the roar of the fast express? Have you seen starlight on the rails?” Thomas Wolfe
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Johnny Hard
traditional
Johnny Hard he was a desperate little man
Carried a gun and a razor every day
He cut down a man on the free state line
You oughta seen Johnny Hard gettin' away, poor boy
You oughta seen Johnny Hard gettin' away.
Johnny Hard made a run for the free state line
There he thought he'd be free
But a man come walkin' and grabbed him by his arm
Sayin', Johnny come along with me (X2)
Johnny Hard he wrote his mammy and his dad
Sayin', "Come here and go my bail."
But money wouldn't go his murdering charge
So they laid Johnny Hard down in jail, yes, Lord (etc.)
Now the first one to visit Johnny Hard in jail
Was a girl with a rag on her head
Said, "I never thought I'd live to see you in jail.
I believe I would rather see you dead, Johnny Hard. (etc.)
Now the next one to visit Johnny Hard in jail
Was his little loving wife so brave
Said, "I'd rather see you in your winding sheets
Than to see you on that long rattling chain, great God."(etc)
Johnny Hard he stood in his jail cell
And the tears running down from his eyes
Said, "I've been the death of many-a deputy sheriff
But my six-shooter never told a lie, God knows," (etc.)
"I have run to the East, I have run to the West
Run just as far as I can
If I ever get loose from this ball and chain
I'm gonna make it for that free state line," (etc.)
"You got guards in the East, got guards in the West
Got guards this whole world round
But before I'd be a slave I,d rot down in my grave
You can take me to my hanging ground, Mr. Jailer," (etc.)
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I Pity the Poor Immigrant
Bob Dylan
click here for lyrics
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Stepstone
I stood at the stepstone when schooldays were o‘er,
Longed for the time to go by,
Now that it‘s gone I stand here tonight
And bid this old stepstone goodbye.
(chorus)
Goodbye to the stepstone, goodbye to my home,
God bless the ones that I leave with a sigh,
Fields will be whitening and I will be gone
To ramble this wide world alone.
I stand at the stepstone at eventide now
Wind whistles by with a moan
Love now is gone as I stand here tonight
Goodbye to my stepstone and home.
(chorus)
It‘s hard to be parted from those that we loved,
When reverses in fortune have come,
The world’s strongest of heart-strings are breaking in twain,
By the absence of loved ones and home.
(chorus)
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Little Birdie
Little birdie, little birdie,
What makes you fly so high?
It's because I'm a true little bird
And I do not fear to die.
Little birdie, little birdie,
What makes your wing so blue?
It's because I've been a-grievin,,
A-grievin' after you.
Little birdie, little birdie,
What makes your head so red?
After all I've been through,
It's a wonder I'm not dead.
Little birdie, little birdie,
Come sing to me your song.
I've a short time to be here
And a long time to be gone.
Little birdie, little birdie,
What makes you fly so high?
It's because I'm a true little bird,
And I do not fear to die.
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Used to be I'd walk downtown
Down to Planter's Bar
Half the guys I knew those days
They didn't own a car
But if you knew the reg'lars
They were just like family
And it was, "How the hell you doing, Roy?"
And, "Have a drink on me."
And now they tore old Planter's down
To build another bank.
And no one evr goes downtown
To have a couple drinks.
And when you walk into a bar,
Nobody says hello. And it's getting so it's hard to find
A friendly place to go.
And now they ride the circuit
From Main to Courthouse Park,
And stop and have a couple beer
Down at the Bear Trap Bar.
And when the fights and music spill
Out into the street,
As I lie here on my bed,
I find it hard to sleep.
I never thought I'd end up living
In a hotel room,
Lying half awake all night
And sleeping until noon.
I guess I'll walk down to the Star
And grab a bite to eat,
Maybe see someone I know
Or sit and watch the street
A song from Jerry Rasmussen’s hometown, Janesville, Wisconsin. „ Early one morning in the summer of I982, when I was home visiting my family, I walked down to the ’Star’ to pick up a paper. Even though there wasn‘t much happening, so early in the day, there was an old codger sitting on the steps of the London Hotel, watching the street. For some reason, he stuck in my mind, and I started to think about how much the town must have changed in his lifetime, and how the town had been taken over, at night, by the kids. Now that the main drag is one-way, the kids race down Milwaukee Street and back up Court Street to Court House Park. The old-timers call them ’Circuit Riders.’ Most of the old bars have either been torn down, or taken over by the Circuit Riders. Even Star Billiard is gone now... moved across the street and gone respectable as the Star Restaurant and Tobacco Bar. But you can sit at a front table and get a good view of the street while you nurse a cup of coffee, and it‘s still a good place to run into old friends. If you stop by, say hello to Frank for me.“ (Booklet in the LP The Secret Life of Jerry Rasmussen , Jerry Rasmussen. Folk-Legacy FSI-I0I.)
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From the banks of Belle Isle
To the Manhattan canyons
From Dad‘s scallop draeger
To working high steel
All of the roads we all have to roam
Let's drink to the ones who made home
From the corner of Main
To the rigs north of sixty
From the wheel of a combine
To pushin' the tool
From back lane to back road
And places unknown
Let's drink to the ones who made home
Many are leaving to seek out their stories
Their fortunes and fates are well known
There's one thing they crave
More than riches and glory
That they find some place that's their own
From the welfare hotel
To the single men's hostel
From barracks and shelters
To those in the streets
They don't need your pity
They can't be disowned
Let's drink to the ones who made home
From the banks of Belle Isle
To the Manhattan canyons
From Dad's scallop draeger
To working high steel
All of the roads we all have to roam
Let's drink to the ones who find home
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This song is based on a story from the Talmud, which Si Kahn’s father told him. „A very old man was digging a hole in his yard. Someone asks him why and he says, ‘Tomorrow, I’m going to plant an olive tree.‘ They laugh at him. ‘Old man, maybe your great-grandchildren will pick the fruit - but you’ll be long gone before then. Don’t you know an olive tree doesn’t bear fruit for ninety years.‘ ‘In that case,‘ he says, ’I’d better plant it today.’“ (Si Kahn Songbook, Milwaukee: Hal Leonard Publishing Company, 1989.p. 26.)
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