Title: [Appreciation] | The 23 Best Train Songs Ever Written—Maybe, by Kevin Baker | Harper's Magazine
Headings: The Twenty-Three Best Train Songs Ever Written—Maybe
The Twenty-Three Best Train Songs Ever Written—Maybe
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Content: Lomax credited it to Kelly Pace, the convict who sang it for him, but it’s almost undoubtedly older than that. Once again, there are kick-ass versions by Leadbelly and Johnny Cash, while Lonnie Donegan released a sped-up version that set off the skiffle craze in England in 1954. The line in question — the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific — never got farther west than the Mississippi. 14. “ Paddy on the Railway.” A work song, obviously a converted sea chantey, about Irish immigrants building the railroad out to California. Carl Sandburg, who published a version in the anthology The American Songbag, claimed to have found sheet music for it dating to the 1850s. It was first recorded in 1941; my favorite is the rollicking, snarling Wolfe Tones version: “ For it’s Paddy do this / And Paddy do that / Without a stocking or cravat / And nothing but an old straw hat / While workin’ on the railway . . .”