Message-ID: <27DEC199320261363@utahep.uta.edu>
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Sender: news@news.uta.edu (USENET News System)
Nntp-Posting-Host: utahep.uta.edu
Organization: University of Texas at Arlington High Energy Physics Group
References:   <756577867snx@truleigh.demon.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1993 01:26:00 GMT
Lines: 54

In article <756577867snx@truleigh.demon.co.uk>, jim@truleigh.demon.co.uk (James Fryer) writes...
> 
[one version of "The Wabash Cannonball"]

Folk music is a wonderful thing. Here's another shot at the lyrics -

Wabash Cannonball

G                                                 C
From the great Atlantic ocean to the wide Pacific shores,
         D                                                     G
From the Queen of flowin mountains, to the south belle by the shore,
G                                                             C
She's mighty tall and hanndsome and she's known quite well by all,
          D                                       G 
She's the modern combination on the Wabash Cannonball

{Quite a bit of wordplay equating the train with a woman, which is 
continued in the next verse}

She came down from Birmingham one cold December day
And as she stood in the roundhouse you could hear all the people say
"There's a gal from Tennesee and, man, she's long and she's tall.
 She came down from Birmingham on the Wabash Cannonball"

{The next verse is very similar to the last in the previous post}

Well here's to Daddy Claxton, may his name forever be !
And long be remembered in the courts of Tennesee.
His earthly trials are over as the final curtain falls.
We'll carry him home to vict'ry on the Wabash Cannonball.

{Up to now the song has had a decidedly southern bent, despite the
fact that the train ran N_S and was named for a river in Indiana. The
next verse, probably a much later redaction, tries to gives some equal 
time to our northern friends...}

Her eastern states are dandy, some people always say.
From New York to St. Louis and Chicago on the way,
From the hills (!) of Minnesota, where the sparkling waters fall -
No changes can be taken on the Wabash Cannonball.

{Check out the alliteration and internal rhyme on the next verse.}

So listen to the jingle, the rumble and the roar
As she glides along the foothills and the pathways to the shore.
Hear the mighty rush of the engines, hear the lonesome hobos call
As they rumble through the jungle on the Wabash Cannonball.

       ================                           
         Lee Sawyer                                  

         Dept of Physics                          
         Univ. of Texas                            
               at Arlington                        

Rather than using G-C-D, I have always played Wabash Cannonball
using G-Am-D7. Try that and see if it dooesn't sound better.

Jeff Alsip
jeffrey@vpnet.chi.il.us