Why shouldn't I spend more time happy than I do sad?
Why waste all my energy wanting what I could never have had?
There's a boxcar with my name spray painted on it in the old trainyard on the East side
If I'm not there by midnight I'm gonna miss my ride
Just another vandal in the trainyard with a bad idea
Something's been stringy about that area since at least Korea
There's a boxcar half full of ashes where people like to sit and watch things burn
And if I'm not there by midnight I'm gonna miss my turn
At one end it ends in a swamp, at the other an empty concrete shell
A shell of a building that burned a little but mostly just...fell
I kind of hate to leave you all and I'm not sure why I have to go
And if I'm not there by midnight I'll never know
The rusted name in spray paint pulls me like a chain drawn on a crank
They say it rose out of the river next to the tracks three days after it sank
There's a boxcar I might have imagined sitting there thinking about a long time ago way back when
And if I'm not there by midnight it'll never roll again
A strange little story and not necessarily the one I meant to tell
Hauling iron, coke, chromium, steel, ore, or people are the things the thing does well
There's a boxcar waiting for a signal or a light or a bell just sitting there on a track
And if I'm not riding out by midnight well I'll never make it back
If I'm not riding out by midnight I'll never come back
If I'm not riding out by midnight...
Shotgun Johnson & the Mississippi Seven Lyrics Index
Shotgun Johnson & the Mississippi Seven Index