(By Nanci Griffith & Eric Taylor)
Down at the station the tracks are cold
The wheels of thunder, they roll no more
And the heart of America cries for the souls
Who won't be rollin' home
The dragon weeps with empty eyes,
The whistle sighs no more in the night...
It rests in the lines, like a ghost in the music,
The soul of America's pride
Toil of our fathers with foreign hands,
They laid the tracks and they opened the plains
They fought the mountains and they merged our seas
They set America free
Tell me,... Where is the blaze of the hobo's caldron?
The refuge for these poor and these fallen?
It rests in the lines, like a ghost in the music,
The soul of America's pride
Foreign father... American son, father see what your son has done
He's torn up the mountains
And reshaped the plains
The dreams he dreams aren't the same
To the fallen ones who may still be askin,
"Who'd take time to stir these ashes,
Who'll hear the lines of a ghost in the music
And kindle America's pride?"
Tell me,... Where is the blaze of the hobo's caldron?
The refuge for these poor and these fallen?
It rests in the lines, like a ghost in the music,
The soul of America's pride
