Jimmie Rodgers Rode a Train

He started as a water boy
On his daddy’s railroad gang
He love to listen to the way
The old black bluesmen sang
The magic rubbed off on him
He was playing his guitar
Wrote song about the southern sky
And the windswept prairie stars
He dreamed about the day
When all the folks would know his name
On that New Orleans and North Eastern
Jimmie Rodgers rode a train
He had to quit the railroad
When he caught that old TB
But he’d heard about Mister Peer
Traveling down to Tennessee 1927
It was a roaring time
But the great depression changed the world In nineteen and twenty nine He entertained the people
And it helped them with their pain
Traveling ‘cross the country
Jimmie Rodgers rode a train
He sang ‘bout old love letters
The day before he died
The last blue yodel sounded like
A lonesome whistle cry
Somewhere down below
That Mason-Dixon line
The singing brakeman was about
To take that long last ride
When he was running out of track
Through the Mississippi rain
Back home to Meridian
Jimmie Rodgers rode a train