Staying On Topic

[Apache Bob]

Getting off track. Do you mean "The Wreck of Old 97"?

 

The actual wreck or the song?

[Apache Bob]

Getting off track. Do you mean "The Wreck of Old 97"?

 

The actual wreck or the song?

 

On one cloudless morning I stood on the mountain,

Just watching the smoke from below,

It was coming from a tall, slim smokestack

Way down on the Southern railroad.

 

It was 97, the fastest train

Ever ran the Southern line,

All the freight trains and passengers take the side for 97,

For she's bound to be at stations on time.

 

They gave him his orders at Monroe, Virginia,

Saying, "Stevie, you're way behind time.

This is not 38, but it's Old 97,

You must put her into Spencer on time."

 

He looked 'round and said to his black greasy fireman,

"Just shovel in a little more coal,

And when I cross that old White Oak Mountain

You can just watch Old 97 roll."

 

It's a mighty rough road from Lynchburg to Danville,

And the lie was a three-mile grade,

It was on that grade that he lost his air brakes,

And you see what a jump that she made.

 

He was going down the grade making 90 miles an hour,

When his whistle began to scream,

He was found in that wreck with his hand on the throttle,

He was scalded to death by the steam.

 

Did she ever pull in? No, she never pulled in,

And at 1:45 he was due,

For hours and hours has the switchman been waiting

For that fast mail that never pulled through.

 

Did she ever pull in? No, she never pulled in,

And that poor boy must be dead.

Oh, yonder he lays on the railroad track

With the cart wheels over his head.

 

97, she was the fastest train

That the South had ever seen,

But she run so fast on that Sunday morning

That the death score was numbered 14.

 

Now, ladies, you must take warning,

From this time now and on.

Never speak harsh words to your true loving husband.

He may leave you and never return.

 

[OldGreyEagle]

Listen, all you children, to my sad refrain,

About a subway conductor on a runaway train.

Squeezing people into cars, he won his fame.

(yeah) And John Charles Cohen was the great man's name.

 

J. C. Cohen, what a great conductor,

IRT, that's a subway line,

And if you wanna travel uptown,

He's a greater conductor than Leonard Bernstein.

 

'Twas on a Sunday in the summer, and from everywhere,

People planned to take a subway to the World's Fair.

A half a million people tried to push and jar,

All of them determined to get in one car.

 

But the IRT depended on their finest men.

J. C. Cohen could pack a subway like a sardine can.

He pushed the people up and back and 'round about.

He squeezed so many in, he squeezed the engineer out.

 

J. C. Cohen, what a great conductor,

How he'd moan, "Step to the rear."

J. C. Cohen, he really had a problem,

On a subway train without an engineer.

 

J. C. tried to get into the engineer's place,

But when he look inside the cab he saw a strange man's face.

A half-pint drunk with a full-pint bottle.

He emptied out the bottle, and he yelled, "Full throttle!"

 

They passed Columbus Circle doing 82,

'Couple minutes later they were under Bronx Zoo.

J. C. shuddered, and he said, "I guess

This used to be a Local, but it's now an Express."

 

J. C. Cohen, what a great conductor,

Kept his head when everyone was tense.

He said, "When we pass the city limits,

Everybody pays another fifteen cents."

 

J. C. said, "We're heading north, my friends,

But not a man alive knows where the subway ends."

The train went under Albany at 90 flat,

And Governor Rockefeller hollered, "What was that!?"

 

A lady said to J. C. Cohen with indignation,

"If this is Albany, then you have passed my station.

So either you should take me back to Fifty-ninth Street,

Or ask one of these gentlemen to give me his seat."

 

J. C. Cohen, what a great conductor,

J. C. Cohen noticed something odd.

When he saw lobsters on the roadbed,

He said, "I got a feeling we're beneath Cape Cod."

 

Oh well, the train kept speeding to the north, my friends,

Finally came to where the tunnel ends.

When they came up to the surface from the long, long hole,

They were 27 inches from the great North Pole.

 

J. C. hollered, "Everybody out!

This is the end of the line, beyond the shadow of a doubt."

They went out to get some fresh air, and before they took a whiff,

Cohen and all the passengers were frozen stiff.

 

J. C. Cohen, what a great conductor,

Bless his soul, he ran out of luck.

J. C. Cohen, he was really frozen,

And he had to be brought home in a Good Humor truck.

 

When they told Mrs. Cohen that she'd lost her man,

She said, "Must you interupt me when I'm playing Pan?"

Then she said to her partner, Mrs. R. J. Rosen,

"Cohen was a lovely husband, but he's no good frozen."

 

Then she went to her little boy, and took his hand,

And she said, "I'm going to take you out to Disneyland.

So Melvin, little darling, don't you weep or wail,

'Cause you got another papa on the monorail."

(Got another papa on the monorail.)

[Apache Bob]

Let me tell you the story

Of a man named Charlie

On a tragic and fateful day

He put ten cents in his pocket,

Kissed his wife and family

Went to ride on the MTA

 

Charlie handed in his dime

At the Kendall Square Station

And he changed for Jamaica Plain

When he got there the conductor told him,

"One more nickel."

Charlie could not get off that train.

 

Chorus:

Did he ever return,

No he never returned

And his fate is still unlearn'd

He may ride forever

'neath the streets of Boston

He's the man who never returned.

 

Now all night long

Charlie rides through the tunnels

the station

Saying, "What will become of me?

Crying

How can I afford to see

My sister in Chelsea

Or my cousin in Roxbury?"

 

Charlie's wife goes down

To the Scollay Square station

Every day at quarter past two

And through the open window

She hands Charlie a sandwich

As the train comes rumblin' through.

 

As his train rolled on

underneath Greater Boston

Charlie looked around and sighed:

"Well, I'm sore and disgusted

And I'm absolutely busted;

I guess this is my last long ride."

{this entire verse was replaced by a banjo solo}

 

Now you citizens of Boston,

Don't you think it's a scandal

That the people have to pay and pay

Vote for Walter A. O'Brien

Fight the fare increase!

And fight the fare increase

Vote for George O'Brien!

Get poor Charlie off the MTA.

 

Chorus:

Or else he'll never return,

No he'll never return

And his fate will be unlearned

He may ride forever

'neath the streets of Boston

He's the man (Who's the man)

He's the man who never returned.

He's the man (Oh, the man)

He's the man who never returned.

He's the man who never returned.

 

[evmori]

White bird in a golden cage

On a winter's day in the rain

White bird in a golden cage

Alone

 

The leaves blow cross the long black road

To the darkened sky in its rage

But the white bird just sits in her cage

Alone

 

White bird must fly or she will die

 

White bird dreams of the aspen trees

With their dying leaves turning gold

But the white bird just sits in her cage

Growing old

 

White bird must fly or she will die

White bird must fly or she will die

 

The sunsets come, the sunsets go

The clouds pile high, the air moves slow

And the young bird's eyes do always know

She must fly, she must fly, she must fly

 

White bird in a golden cage

On a winter's day in the rain

White bird in a golden cage

Alone?

 

White bird must fly or she will die

White bird must fly or she will die

White bird must fly or she will die?

White bird must fly?

[OldGreyEagle]

Heard the Fugs do this one

 

How sweet I roam'd from field to field,

And tasted all the summer's pride,

'Till I the prince of love beheld,

Who in the sunny beams did glide!

 

He shew'd me lilies for my hair,

And blushing roses for my brow;

He led me through his gardens fair,

Where all his golden pleasures grow.

 

With sweet May dews my wings were wet,

And Phoebus fir'd my vocal rage;

He caught me in his silken net,

And shut me in his golden cage.

 

He loves to sit and hear me sing,

Then, laughing, sports and plays with me,

Then stretches out my golden wing,

And mocks my loss of liberty.

 

William Blake

[skeptic]

Who can identify this one?

 

THE ART OF CATCHING TRAINS

 

1.

 

I came through the clothesline maze

of childhood

in basketball shoes.

Up from the cracked cement of sidewalks.

Long hair blowing in the breeze

from barber-college haircuts.

I moved into the country

knowing love better than long division.

 

Tricking out with women twice my age

we acted out our own French postcards.

Dr. Jekyll in the schoolyard,

Mr. Hyde behind the barn.

 

After school the trains,

their whistles known by heart.

Pennies flattened on a rail

and dresser drawers with matchbooks

from every northern town -

thrown by unknown travelers

who never waved back.

 

I knew the U.P. right of way so well

that gandy dancers called me tow-head

till they learned my name

and engineers would sometimes whistle

down the scale

on seeing my arm raised.

 

Baseball's just a sissy game

to anyone who's waved at passing trains.

 

You learn from hobos

the art of catching trains.

Locomotives slow at trestles

and whistle stops

to hook the mail.

 

Diving through an open box car

you lie there till your breath comes back.

Then standing in the doorway you're the king

as crowns of hills and towns go by

and nighttime eats the Summer up

and spits the stars across the sky.

 

How did I come to know

so many lonesome cities

with only pennies in my pockets ?

I smiled a lot

and rode a lot of trains

and got to know conductors

and railroad bulls by name.

From Alamo to Naples is a ride

that took me nearly twenty years.

But here I am,

my cardboard suitcase traded in for leather.

 

2.

 

Now a traveler

under the gray-black Winter sky

moving down the mountain by torchlight,

I've come to find

a gathering of eagles.

Not for the sake of mingling

with the great birds,

but only to justify

a thousand streets walked end to end.

Ten thousand evenings spent listening

to the small sounds of the night

in station after station.

 

Not every town in Switzerland

has a golden Gondelbahn,

but there are other ways

to climb the hills

and reach the lonesome cities

of the world.

 

Riding friendly bodies

you can inch your way to Heaven

let alone the far side of the room

and who'd deny that brushing elbows

in certain streets

has not produced for every man

at least one vision of Atlantis.

 

For me old habits don't break easily

I wait for trains.

 

Sometimes I feel I've always been

just passing through.

On my way away, or toward.

Shouting alleluias at an unseen choir

or whispering Fa-do's down beneath my breath

waiting for an echo

not an answer.

Everybody has the answers

or they'll make them up

for you.

 

Just once I'd like to hear

a brand-new question.

 

What about the trains you ride

do they go fast or slow

would I recognize your face

clacking past the poplar trees

if I were stationed on some hill ?

 

If I did I'd know you

by the look of nothing in your eyes,

the kindred look that travelers have,

the one that says a tentative hello.

 

If while riding down the rails

you see a boy in overalls

along the railroad right of way,

wave as you go by.

Signal with a frown

you too are going down

the same road.

 

Small boys need encouragement

the freight trains in their minds

will only take them just so far.

Be kind

for small boys need to grow.

[OldGreyEagle]

rod mckuen

[Gold Winger]

Okay, you guys are getting too serious . . .

 

Michael Rennie was ill

The Day the Earth Stood Still

But he told us where we stand

And Flash Gordon was there

In silver underwear

Claude Rains was The Invisible Man

Then something went wrong

For Fay Wray and King Kong

They got caught in a celluloid jam

Then at a deadly pace

It Came From Outer Space

And this is how the message ran...

 

 

Science fiction (ooh ooh ooh) double feature

Doctor X (ooh ooh ooh) will build a creature

See androids fighting (ooh ooh ooh) Brad and Janet

Anne Francis stars in (ooh ooh ooh) Forbidden Planet

Wo oh oh oh oh oh

At the late night, double feature, picture show

 

 

I knew Leo G. Carroll

Was over a barrel

When Tarantula took to the hills

And I really got hot

When I saw Janette Scott

Fight a Triffid that spits poison and kills

Dana Andrews said prunes

Gave him the runes

And passing them used lots of skills

But When Worlds Collide

Said George Pal to his bride

I'm gonna give you some terrible thrills

Like a...

 

 

Science fiction (ooh ooh ooh) double feature

Doctor X (ooh ooh ooh) will build a creature

See androids fighting (ooh ooh ooh) Brad and Janet

Anne Francis stars in (ooh ooh ooh) Forbidden Planet

Wo oh oh oh oh oh

At the late night, double feature, picture show

I wanna go - Oh oh oh oh

To the late night, double feature, picture show

By R.K.O. - Wo oh oh oh

To the late night, double feature, picture show

In the back row - Oh oh oh oh

To the late night, double feature, picture show

[Vicki]

GW, I've always thought you and I may have more in common than would first appear...let's do the time warp again...it's just a jump to the left...

 

Vicki(This message has been edited by Vicki)

[OldGreyEagle]

LIPS, LIPS, LIPS LIPS, LIPS, LIPS LIPS, LIPS, LIPSLIPS, LIPS, LIPS LIPS, LIPS, LIPS LIPS, LIPS, LIPS

LIPS, LIPS, LIPS LIPS, LIPS, LIPS LIPS, LIPS, LIPS

LIPS, LIPS, LIPS LIPS, LIPS, LIPS LIPS, LIPS, LIPS

[Gold Winger]

How do you do, I see you've met

My faithful handyman

He's a bit brought down

Because when you knocked

He thought you were the candyman.

 

Don't get strung out

By the way I look

Don't judge a book

by its cover.

I'm not much of a man

by the light of day

but at night

I'm one heck of a Scouter.

[Vicki]

and from my favorite Meat:

 

What ever happened to Saturday night?

When you dressed up sharp and you felt all right?

 

Vicki

[Gold Winger]

Hot patootie, bless mah soul,

I really love that rock 'n roll.

 

 

Poor Eddie, he may not have liked his teddy but . . . what a guy.

[frankj]

Another well-known Churchill retort:

 

Woman at dinner table says to Churchill: Sir, if you were my husband I would put poison in your coffee.

Churchill to woman: Madam, if you were my wife I would drink it.