Hi all,
J.E. Mainer's Mountaineers, an old-time band from North Carolina, recorded "The Longest Train", a song that is in the same family as Peg Leg Howell's "Rolling Mill Blues", Charley Lincoln's "Chain Gang Trouble", Leadbelly's "Black Gal" and Bill Monroe's "In The Pines". Mainer's version is one of the most distinctive. It is in the seldom-encountered 3/2 meter (except for its last two bars); 3/2 can be expressed by the rhythm guitar figure of "boom-chang, boom-chang, boom-chang" per each measure. You can hear a performance of the song at
http://weeniecampbell.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=2101.msg67690#msg67690, and there is a more detailed discussion of the song's musical aspects a couple of posts after that. Here is "The Longest Train":
The longest train I ever saw was the day I left my home
The engine had passed the six-mile post and the cab had never left town
REFRAIN: Look up, look down that lonesome road where you and I must go
To the pines, to the pines, where the sun never shines, where I shiver when the cold wind blows
The prettiest little girl I ever saw was walking down the line
Her cheek was painted rosy red and her hair hung down behind
REFRAIN: Look up, look down that lonesome road where you and I must go
To the pines, to the pines, where the sun never shines, where I shiver when the cold wind blows
That train run back four mile from town, and killed my girl, you know
Her head was found in the driver wheel, her body I never could find
REFRAIN: Look up, look down that lonesome road where you and I must go
To the pines, to the pines, where the sun never shines, where I shiver when the cold wind blows
All best,
Johnm
