Skip to main content

Ellis Paul

Jumpin' a Train

The time, 11:33 on a Saturday, November, 1923
I'm synchronized, it's wise to keep my wits about me
My name is Roy, a one-time choir boy
Now I'm sixteen, man, and I'm nobody's toy
I'm gonna take to the wind and get this town behind me

(chorus)
I'm jumpin' a train leavin' town
Howling whistle sounds
And I'm not looking back -- gonna tie my fate to a train track
Got a whiskey bottle tied in a corn sack
Hold on world, I'm coming, I'm hitching a ride on a north-bound train

Am I alive? Won't somebody tell me
The Mississippi waves, what's it trying to sell me?
Mud in the banks, but no one gets thanks
when it's tracked in through the doorway

I am home grown, sewn into these britches
But I'm not spending my life digging up ditches
Like my Daddy did, and his Daddy did, and his Daddy before

Ellis Paul/End Construction Publishing (ASCAP) 1992