Texas 1947

Words and music by Guy Clark
Arrangement by Johnny Cash

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 and black and smokin'
steam screamin' at the wheels.
Bigger'n anything there is
'least that's the way she feels.

Trains are big and black and smokin'
louder'n July Four.
But everybody's actin'
like this might be something more...

...than just pickin' up the mail
or the soldiers from the war.
Somethin' even old man Wileman's
never seen before.

And it's a late afternoon
on a hot Texas day.
Somethin' strange was goin' on
and we's all in the way.

There are 50 or 60 people
just sittin' on their cars.
And the ole men left their domioes
and come down from the bars.

And everybody's checkin'
old Jack Kittrell checks his watch.
And us kids put our ears
to the rails to hear 'em pop.

So we already knowed it
when they finally said train time.
You'd have thought that Judgement Day
was rollin' down the line.

Cause things got real quiet
and mama jerked me back.
But not before I get the chance
to lay a nickel on the track.
 

(CHORUS) Look out here she comes she's comin'. Look out there she goes she's gone. Screamin' straight through Texas like a mad dog cyclone. Big and red and silver she don't lay no smoke. She's a fast rollin' streamliner come to show the folks. I said look out here she comes she's comin'. Look out there she goes she's gone. Screamin' straight through Texas like a mad dog cyclone.

[ guitar solo ]

(Lord, she never even stopped)
She left 50 or 60 people
still sittin' on their cars.
Wonderin' what it's comin' to
and how it got this far.

And me I got a nickel
smashed flatter than a dime.
By a mad dog
runaway
red silver streamline
train.

(CHORUS)

(CHORUS)

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