The Fast Flying Virginian

Lyin’ waitin’ in the darkness,
Of a West Virginia midnight,
At the ending of a long weed chopping day,
For the rootless freedom call,
Of the Fast Flyin’ Virginian,
To come echoin’ from twenty miles away,
She’s goin’ Oooooowoooo…

Movin’ faster, gettin closer,
Soundin’ angry now, and lonesome,
As a fire-born mountain preacher shoutin’ sin,
Like a passing boyhood dream,
This black angel of the steam,
Hauled the forties out and called the fifties in,
With her Oooooooowooooo…

Queen of all the eastern lines,
Past the factories and mines,
All the laughin’ folks with money flyin’ by,
Dining lounges, salon-bars,
Glowing lights and sleeping cars,
Leaving me there in the dark alone to cry,
I’d hear her Oooooooowooooooo…

Now sometimes at night wonder,
If that Fast Flyin’ Virginian’s,
Sitting rusting on some siding down the line,
While her pale ghost wails along
With a lonesome, angry song,
Past the skeletons of factories and mines,
She’s howling Ooooooowooooooo…
…Oooooowoooooooo…