The Lonesome Train
A Musical Legend text by Millard Lampell / Music by Earl Robinson
The long war was over,
The tall man with the sad eyes and the stooping shoulders was tired. And so, one night he did what everybody likes to do sometimes when they’re tired; He went to a show.
He went down to Ford’s theater in Washington town, and he sat in a box. And it was the number one box, because he was a pretty big man. Well, the play went on, and along about the middle of the evening something happened that wasn’t on the program. I guess you all know what that was. The news spread pretty fast:
They carried the news from Washington,
That Abraham Lincoln’s time had come.
John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln dead
With a pistol bullet through the head.
The slaves were free; the war was won,
But the fight for freedom was just begun.
There were still slaves; the hungry and poor,
Men who were not free to speak,
Freedom’s a thing that has no ending,
It needs to be cared for; it needs defending.
A great long job for many hands,
Carrying freedom ‘cross the land.
A job for all the people carrying freedom across the land.
A job for Lincoln’s people. And you know who Lincoln’s people were?
A Brooklyn blacksmith, a Pittsburgh preacher,
A small-town tailor, a back-woods teacher,
An old store-keeper shaking his head,
Handing over a loaf of bread,
A Buffalo-hunter telling a story
Out of the Oregon territory.
They were his people; he was their man.
You couldn’t quite tell where the people left off and where Abe Lincoln began.
There was a silence in Washington town, when they carried Mr. Lincoln down.
A lonesome train on a lonesome track --
Seven coaches painted black --
Mr. Lincoln’s funeral train traveling the long road from
Washington to Baltimore,
Baltimore to Philadelphia,
Philadelphia to New York,
Albany, Syracuse, Cleveland, Chicago to Springfield, Illinois.
A slow train, a quiet train
Carrying Lincoln home again.
It wasn’t quite mist; it was almost rain,
Falling down on that funeral train,
There was a strange and quiet crowd,
Nobody wanting to talk out loud.
Along the streets, across the square,
Lincoln’s people were waiting there.
A young sergeant stood in the road and said:
“You’d think they’d have warned him. I mean,
even a rattlesnake warns you!”
And an old man answered: “This one must have been a copperhead!”
Some in the North and some in the West and some by the President’s side,
They cursed him every day that he lived and cheered on the day he died.
A lonesome train on a lonesome track --
Seven coaches painted black --
They carried Mr. Lincoln down,
The train started - the wheels went round -
You could hear that whistle for miles around
Crying, Freedom! Freedom!
They tell this story about that train,
They say that Lincoln wasn’t on that train!
When that train started on its trip that day,
Lincoln was in Alabama, miles away.
Yes, sir, down in Alabama, in an old wooden church,
didn’t have no paint, didn’t have no floor,
didn’t have no glass in the windows.
Just a pulpit and some wooden benches ...
Abe Lincoln on the last bench, away in the back,
Listening to the sermon, listening to the singing
You may bury me in the east; you may bury me in the west, but I’ll hear that trumpet sound in the morning!
This evening brothers and sisters, I come in the holiest manner, to tell how he died.
He was a lying there his blood on the ground, a covering in the ground, and while he was a lying there the sun rose. The sun rose and recognized him. And just as soon as the sun recognized him, it clothed itself in sackcloth and it went right back down. Oh the sun went down in mourning. And seven angels leaped over the Battlement of Glory and they come on down to get him, and as soon as the angels come near to him, G-d almighty, he stood up, oh he rose up, and he walked down among us! Praise G-d! He walked back down among his people! Oh, I want to tell yeh, he’s living right here, right now! We got a new land! My dear friends we got a new land. There ain’t no riding boss with a whip, don’t have no backbiters, liars can’t go, cheaters can’t go, ain’t no deputy to chain us and no high sheriff to bring us back!
You can bury me in the east; you can bury me in the west, but I’ll hear that trumpet sound in the morning!
Down in Alabama, nothing but a pulpit and some wooden benches, and Mr. Lincoln sitting in the back, away in the back.
A lonesome train on a lonesome track --
Seven coaches painted black --
A slow train, a quiet train
Carrying Lincoln home again;
Washington, Baltimore,
Pittsburgh, Philadelphia,
Coming into New York town,
You could hear that whistle for miles around
Crying, Freedom! Freedom!!
From Washington to New York people lined the tracks.
A strange crowd, a quiet crowd, nobody wanting to talk out loud.
At lonely country crossroads there were farmers and their wives and kids standing around for hours. In Philadelphia, the line of mourners ran three miles.
An old lady stood by the coffin and said: “Mr. Lincoln, are you dead? Are you really dead?”
And some wanted him dead for a long, long time. A cotton speculator turned away from the coffin, saying: “All right boys, the drinks are on me!”
For there were those who cursed the Union,
those who wanted the people apart.
While the sound of the freedom guns still echoed,
Copperheads struck at the people’s heart.
I’ve heard it said that when that train pulled into New York town, Mr. Lincoln wasn’t around. He was where there was work to be done, where there were people having fun!
When that funeral train pulled into New York,
Lincoln was down in a Kansas town,
Swinging his lady ‘round and ’round.
When young Abe Lincoln came to dance,
those Kansas boys didn’t have a chance!
They were dancing people you could see,
they were folks so lively and free,
the men were tall and the girls were fair,
they fought for the right to be dancing there.
Those Kansas boys didn’t have a chance, when young Abe Lincoln came to dance.
A lonesome train on a lonesome track --
Seven coaches painted black --
The train started, the wheels went round
All the way to Cleveland town.
Albany, Syracuse, Meadville.
You could hear that whistle for miles around
Crying, Freedom! Freedom!!
When that train rolled into Cleveland town, Mr. Lincoln wasn’t around.
Lincoln walked in to a hospital ward far from the funeral train.
There was Lincoln in a hospital ward, talking to quiet a soldier’s pain.
“Where were you wounded son? Lincoln said,
Standing by the soldiers bed.
“At Bull Run, sir and Chancellorsville,
I was shot when we stormed the hill.
I’ve been worried since Chancellorsville,
About killing, sir: it’s wrong to kill!”
Lincoln said: “That’s been bothering me;
How to make the war and the Word agree.”
Quiet and tall, by the side of the bed,
“There is a reason,” Lincoln said.
“Until all men are equal and all are free,
There will be no peace!
While there are whips and chains and men to use them, there will be no peace!
After the battles, after the blood and wounded,
when the chains are smashed and the whips are broken
and the men who held the whips are dead,
when men are brothers and men are free, the killing will end!
The war will cease when free men have a free man’s peace!”
“I’ll be going home soon,” the soldier said.
Lincoln turned from the side of the bed.
“I’ll see you there,” Mr. Lincoln said.
A slow train, a funeral train,
Carrying Lincoln home again.
Last stop: Springfield, Illinois!
Lincoln’s neighbors came; farmers from o’er in the next county,
shopkeepers and shoemakers,
men who had hired him for a lawyer,
men who had split rails with him.
They came from Matoon and Salem,
fellows who had swapped stories with Abe Lincoln during those long Illinois winter nights.
Lincoln’s neighbors were there.
A slow rain, a warm rain,
Falling down on the funeral train.
When that train rolled into Springfield, you know where Lincoln was.
He was standing with his friends in the back of the crowd.
Yes, sir! Standing fast, standing proud, wearing a shawl instead of a shroud.
Abe Lincoln was with his friends, telling jokes!
I remember him stepping down on that depot platform with that grin.
I presume you all know who I am.
I am humble Abe Lincoln.
My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman’s dance.
“Mr. Lincoln, isn’t it right that some men
should be masters and some should be slaves?”
“Brother if G-d intended some men to do all the work and no eating,
he would have made some men with all hands and no mouths!”
(Standing tall, standing proud!)
“Well I say: America for Americans!
What happens on the other side of the ocean shouldn’t be any skin off our backs.
Isn’t that right Mr. Lincoln?”
“Well I’ll tell you, Ma’am:
It seems to me the strongest bond of human sympathy, outside your family, of course,
should be the one uniting all working people of all nations, tongues, and kindred!”
(wearing a shawl instead of a shroud)
“Somehow, I wouldn’t expect the President of the United States to be such a common man!”
“I think G-d must have loved the common people. He made so many of them!”
“Mr. Lincoln, how does it feel to be President?”
“Old age saying. Well now, it feels sort like the fellow they run out of town on a rail.
If it wasn’t for the honor of it, I’d just as soon walk.”
They were his people; he was their man,
You couldn’t quite tell where the people left off and where Abe Lincoln began.
A lonesome train on a lonesome track --
Seven coaches painted black --
Abe Lincoln had an Illinois face
and he came out of a pioneer race.
He knew how hard the fight would be
and he liked the idea of being free.
His heart was taut as a railroad tie,
he was made of stuff that doesn’t die.
He was made of hopes,
he was made of fears;
he was made to last a million years.
Freedom’s a thing that has no ending,
it needs to be cared for, it needs defending!
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