Freight train number 9

FREIGHT TRAIN

 (c) 1957 by Elizabeth Cotten. Sanga Music

Chorus:

Freight train, Freight train, run so fast
Freight train, Freight train, run so fast

Please don't tell what train I'm on
They won't know what route I've gone

When I am dead and in my grave
No more good times here I crave
Place the stones at my head and feet
Tell them all that I've gone to sleep.

When I die, Lorde, bury me deep
Way down on old Chestnut street
Then I can hear old Number 9
As she comes rolling by.

Went for our walk this evening and we stopped by Timmies for a small coffee. It's a small Timmies, mostly a drive through, no tables, just one end of a convenience gas bar, in the lively west end of Winnipeg which our present federal party of vast majority considers a non conservative ghetto. There were three of us waiting for the nice lady to take the cars orders, cause us walk ins just don't have the ranking of them well wheeled folk. The older gentleman first in the sort of a line had a guitar, and when he finally got to order he picked up his instrument and played and sang us this tune whilst he was awaiting his caffeine fix. He was a class act with his little belly and his cotten picking was of merit.

As we sat having our coffee on the eveningly deserted picnic table of a local business on a side street, also eveningly deserted, watching the local rabbits trimming the lawn, memories came back of our childhood and the main CN rail line which ran less than a quarter mile from our farm yard. They still ran the odd steam locomotive down that track and the local water tower wasn't demolished till we turned at least ten. We'd often sit on the hill and wave to the engineers who would always blow the whistle for us. Many people today are kept awake by trains, but for us the sound of a good long freight rumbling by just a whistling for the crossings is music to our ears and the greatest sound in the world to put us to sleep. Wouldn't mind either to be buried deep near a railway line.