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Written by Paul D. Race for Family Garden Trains(tm)
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The Wabash Cannonball, a Classic Train Song from Family Garden TrainsTMThe Wabash river flows from Northwest Ohio across Indiana to the border of Illinois. There was also a series of railroad-based businesses with Wabash in the name, including the Wabash Railroad (1889-1915), the Wabash Railway (1915-1931), and the PRR-controlled Wabash Railroad (1941-1960). None of those entities, as far as I can determine, ever ran a train called the "Wabash Cannonball" until after the song became famous. In fact, the first published version of this song had the lyrics "Great Rock Island Route" where later versions inserted the words "Wabash Cannonball." So it's possible that the song came before the title, and no one really knows how, when, why, or even if the name changed. There is no question, however, that "Wabash Cannonball" sounds better than "Great Rock Island Route." Of course no train from the American heartland ever went to both shores, or to all of the cities named in some versions of the song. Several versions describe the train from the hobos' point of view, which has lead some historians to hypothesize that the "Wabash Cannonball" was sort of hobo "tall tale," like the "Big Rock Candy Mountain." Run Through the Jungle - The "hobo" versions have the train running through the "jungle," which indicates the "hobo jungle," the makeshift shantytowns that hobos often built near railroad yards. The Tribute Verse - Several versions have a tribute verse to "Daddy Cleton," or "Daddy Claxton," or other names that are entirely different. The hobo versions seem to identify the person being toasted as a late, great hobo. Other versions have the person as being remembered in the courtrooms, which would make more sense if the fellow was, say, a lawyer. Roy Acuff has pointed out that he has ancestors named Claxton, so he thinks "Daddy Claxton" might be some uncle of his that was a lawyer. Unfortunately, the name "Daddy Claxton" found its way to the song long before the song found its way to the Acuffs, so the chronology doesn't seem to support Roy's hypothesis. Victory or Dixie - The last line of the tribute verse includes the phrase "carry him home to victory," but southern singers tend to sing it "carry him home to Dixie," a choice that I included in the version below. (I'm not from the south, but "Dixie" just works better.) In other choices, I tended toward the earlier wording choices and toward the wording choices that emphasized the majesty of the locomotive, "rumble" versus "rumor," "whistle's call" versus "hobo's call," etc. If you grew up with another version, please accept my apologies and feel free to sing this song any way you want to. If you don't know the tune and would like to see it on a score, please click here. Also, if you have a favorite train song, or a favorite performer that I've left out, please contact me and I'll try to track him down. Also, if you don't see the link for a clip in the table below, hit the "refresh" button on your browser. Sometimes Amazon has trouble populating all of the links at the same time. From the coast of the Atlantic, to the broad Pacific shore,
MP3 clips from Amazon
More Great Sound Clips of This Song
You-Tube Videos of This SongI used to have a bunch of videos that you could click on and watch straight from this page. However, someone will get kicked off of YouTube for an unrelated reason and they would take all the videos that person ever posted down, and all the links will break. So now I am just posting ordinary links that will take you directly to YouTube. My apologies for any inconvenience, but these links are a lot easier to maintain.
There is now a Train Songs section on our Creek Don't Rise Forum Page. Here's where we post information about updates and information that doesn't really fit anywhere on the Classic Train Songs site(yet). |
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All material, illustrations, and content of this web site is copyrighted ? 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006,
2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 by Paul D. Race. All rights reserved.
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