Liner Notes

This fascinating program presents Johnny Cash as singer and narrator in an imaginative travelogue across America. Ride This Train is not, as might be supposed, a collection of train songs. It is a provocative tour of the country through narration and song. Through the background runs the haunting sound of the now-vanishing steam locomotives and their whistles, sounds that used to echo through the nights of small towns and across the empty plains. Most of the people this story tells about are vanished now, too, but they have left their mark on America, and Johnny Cash sings about them with uncommon artistry and sympathy.

The travelogue begins with a recital of place-names of America, majestic in their artless poetry, and continues with the thundering names of the Indian tribes who lived here first. Then Johnny Cash boards the train, stopping first at a small town in the mining country of Kentucky. He presents a brief character sketch of a boy whose father is a minerwhen he comes home "nothing is clean but the whites of his eyes"and whose ambition is to follow that calling. Loading Coal tells the story of a miner who never expects to get rich, but still follows the tradition of his family.

The train then moves westward onto the prairies, where we meet the outlaw John Wesley Hardin, whose murderous life is described with candor. Then we meet another Westerner, a saddle tramp who rides an old Paint. His life is nearly spent, he misses his daughters and wife, but he tries to keep on singing (Slow Rider).

Johnny Cash next takes us still farther west, to Oregon, into lumberjack country, and outlines a young man's first day as a high-climber. Among the lessons he learns is "don't cut timber on a windy day" (Lumberjack). Then the fabulous engine carries the train south and east, to the swamps and forests of Louisiana, where the Acadians settled in 1788. Johnny Cash presents his own composition, a tragic ballad of Dorraine of Ponchartrain, the black-eyed beauty who was lost in a boat amid the choppy waves of the lake.

Now the train goes northward, up to Mississippi and its levees and the constant fight against flood waters. In this sequence Johnny Cash sings his own version of Going to Memphis, a striking song of the convict workgangs with a remarkable contrast between the abjection of its lyrics ("My brother was killed for a deed I did, but I disremember what"), and its urgent rhythm. Eastward, now, to South Carolina. Here Johnny Cash sketches the delights of going to a county fair in a buckboard, and the pleasure of a child in listening to dance music after the judging events are concluded. The song is Johnny's own When Papa Played the Dobro, the dobro being an old-fashioned metal-stringed instrument, similar to the guitar. Papa didn't know much about music by real musical standards, but when he played it was worth sitting up for!

Arkansas is the next stop in this remarkable journey. Johnny Cash describes the cotton land, particularly the old days of tall cotton, through the eyes of an enlightened slave owner, and sings a worksong about a good boss, Boss Jack, and his kindness to the people who worked for him. Once more the train rumbles across America, stopping at last in Iowa, where t~ influx of Irish immigrants is noted, with special accent on the interdependence of arrivals in the New World. The story of Old Doc Brown is recited by Johnny Cash, and although the trip is now over, echoes of the American past remain vivid.

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Info

Personnel

• Johnny Cash - Guitar, Liner Notes, Main Performer, Leader, Vocals
• Al Casey - Guitar
• Luther Perkins - Guitar
• Johnny Western - Guitar
• Shot Jackson - Dobro, Guitar (Steel)
• Marshall Grant - Bass
• Gordon Terry - Fiddle
• Floyd Cramer - Piano
• Buddy Harman - Drums

Additional personnel

• Don Law - Original Recording Producer
• Al Quaglieri - Reissue Producer
• Seth Foster - Mastering
• Mark Wilder - Mastering, Mixing
• Stacey Boyle - Tape Research
• Matt Kelly - Tape Research
• Kay Smith - Tape Research
• Arthur Levy - Liner Notes
• Darren Salmieri - A&R
• Steven Berkowitz - A&R
• Patti Matheny - A&R
• Howard Fritzson - Art Direction
• Alan Lomax - Adaptation, Arranger
• Randall Martin - Design
• Don Hunstein - Photography
• Nick Shaffran - Series Consultant
• Dick Miller - CD Art Adaptation

 

Recorded:
Feb 14-16/1960 at Bradley Film & Recording Studio, Nashville

Info

Ride This Train was the first explicit Americana concept album that Johnny Cash recorded. As the title implies, the album is about railroads, how they developed and how they changed the land. Apart from a couple of songs, Ride This Train isn't comprised of traditional folk ballads — they are songs that tell the history of trains and rails, offering an educational lesson. Cash expounds on the songs with brief spoken narratives. Though it is hard to fault Cash's intentions, the songs aren't very good (although "The Shifting Whispering Sands" is a standout) and the history is a bit simplistic and silly. On the whole, Ride This Train sounds as if it is of a piece with the Walt Disney educational features produced at the same time, and like those films, it is more interesting as an historical artifact than a piece of art.

Re Issue Info

Digitally remastered by Mark Wilder and Seth Foster (Song Music Studios, New York, New York).

The artistic freedom Johnny Cash gained when he left Sun Records for Columbia at the end of the 1950s was first exemplified by 1959's HYMNS album, but the following year's RIDE THIS TRAIN took Cash's conceptual explorations into previously unimagined realms. A full-blown concept album featuring sound effects and lengthy narratives would never have happened on Sun founder Sam Philips's watch, but the newly unfettered Cash reveled in the opportunity to make this striking, distinctive record. The album was billed as a "travelogue of America," and Cash neatly combines his passions for American history, storytelling, and the magic of trains to present portraits of the country he loved.

Each track on RIDE THIS TRAIN begins with Cash delivering a monologue over train sounds, taking the roles of characters from different walks and eras of American life, followed by a song further illustrating the tale. This album represented not only a structural/conceptual innovation for Cash, but a stylistic one as well. Most of the tunes are led by acoustic guitar, and the American musical idioms explore include not only country, but folk, country blues, and work songs. The four bonus tracks included on this reissue don't fall into the format of the rest of the album, but are nevertheless welcome, making good use of the tasteful addition of drums to Cash's tried-and-true Tennessee Two guitars-and-bass approach.

Lyrics

Ride this train up and down and across a strange wonderful land
It's almost like a fairyland when you to think about it
You go through places with names like Tuscaloosa Kokomo Muskogee Oshkosh Saginaw
Eureka Bandera Battle Creek Sioux City Chattanooga
Hattiesburg Lynchburg and Baltinare Arkansas
You see I'm a million different people from all over the world
And I've been coming to this country for hundreds of years
This was the Promised Land for me
But let's not forget that when I came here
There were already millions of people living in teepees along the rivers
And hunting deer and buffalo for food and shelter
And it's with a little regret that I think of how I pushed them back
And crowded them out to claim this land for myself or for another country
But the Indians' hearts must have been full of music
For they left names with me that seem to sing
Names like Mohawk Mandan Kickapoo Cree Yacoma Seminole Crow Shawnee
Choctaw Delaware Fox Paiute Winnebago Cheyenne Blackfoot
Navajo Ute Comanche Quapaw Creek Apache Sioux Chippewa
Ardua Hupa Shoshone Mow Hicano Sage Menomini
Shinouk Arapaho Nez Perce Iroquois Pony Cutenai
Flathead Chickasaw Pueblo Yuma Pima Pomo Caddo
Well a lot of them are still with me and I'm glad
It's for sure their names will always be with me
But let's look a little at the heart and muscle of this land
Few things you don't read in books things that aren't taught in school
Now you take this little town we're goin' through here this is Beach Creek Kentucky
And right down there in the valley that's where our house used to be
It was a little shotgun shack with a spring out back
And a smokehouse and another little bitty house and that's about all
My pa was a coalminer like most everybody in Mulengerg County
Worked in the mines all his life
I guess he didn't have much ambition to do anything else
Cause they say coalmining kinda gets in your blood
Matter of fact pa said if they ever drained the blood out of him
It would be blacker than black strap moulesen
When I was a kid I used to sit at the fireplace there with mom
And wait on pa to get in from the mine
And we'd sure get anxious if he was ever late
Ma would rock back and forth and watch the clock listin' for pa to hit the front porch
Then he'd come in nothin' clean but the whites of his eyes
And he'd reach for that lie-soap and starts scrubbin'
And I'd stand back and watch him and say to myself
Boy I'll be glad when I get big enough to work in the mines

1.
LOADING COAL
(Merle Travis)
« © '60 House Of Cash, BMI / Unichappell Music, BMI »

My pappy said when I was seventeen you're six feet tall and your face is clean
And it don't look right for a boy that old to not make a livin' loadin' coal

Loadin' coal loadin' coal I'm a double first cousin to a dad blamed mole
Never get rich for to save my soul and forty 'leven years a loadin' coal loadin' coal

Ain't never got acquainted with a dollar bill and I don't ever reckon that I ever will
A dollar ain't made for a fellar I'm told that scoops up a livin' loadin' coal

Loadin' coal loadin' coal...
[ ac.guitar ]
I cussed everything in the mining camp from a shovel and my pick to my carbide lamp
But I know mighty well till I grow old I'll still be a cussin' but loadin' coal

Loadin' coal loadin' coal...
[ ac.guitar ]
I know just as well as coal is black one of these days the mines were strike
And I'll sit around starvin' till I'm finally told
There's a nickel more a ton for loadin' coal

Loadin' coal loadin' coal...
**********

Ride this train to any little trail in the West you may find me riding alone late at night
My poor old horse don't understand why I ride at night and sleep in the daytime
Or why we ride in the bushes and hide every time I hear a noise
Well that's all I've done for months now running and hiding
You see my name is John Wesley Hardin no I'm not proud of the name anymore
They say I've killed forty men they tell a lot of different stories about me
Of course I guess I'm to blame for a lot of it
I killed the first time when I was fifteen to save my life but then I had to do it again
Then every bum in the country that was fast with the gun started lookin' for me
They called me the fastest gun alive and I guess I was fast or I wouldn't be alive now
I got to where I couldn't walk down a street or in a saloon
Without some trigger-happy cowpoke
Wantin' to prove he could outdraw old John Wesley Hardin
Maybe I got a little bitter and didn't care whether I killed or not for a while
And I never quite forgot when the authorities in Huntsville prison
Dragged me up in the snow naked and horsewhipped me
Well that's why I'm ridin' at night I want to go where no one has ever seen me
Where I won't even have to wear a gun
Maybe I'll settle down in a quiet little town somewhere
Even get a job on the right side of the law who knows
Maybe in a new town the people will let me forget

2.
SLOW RIDER
(Johnny Cash)
« © '60 House Of Cash, BMI »

I ride an old paint he's on the worryside
And I'm a saddle tramp about to cross the great divide
Where there's grass in the coolies and water in the drawl
And the forty pound saddle won't make us both raw

Slow rider slow rider move on a little more
The sky boss is waitin' at the big ranch house door

I can't help but missin' the daughters that I had
One went to Denver the other went bad
My young wife died in a poolroom fight
But I try to keep singin' from morning till night

Slow rider slow rider...
[ guitar ]
Whenever I die take my saddle from the wall
Strap it on snuffy lead him out of the stall
Throw me on his back and turn him toward the west
He knows how to take me to the spot I love best

Slow rider slow rider...
**********

Ride this train to Roseburg Oregon now there's a town for you
And you talk about rough
You know a lot of places in the country claim Paul Bunyon lived there
But you should have seen Roseburg when me and my daddy'd come there
Everyone of them loggers looked like Paul Bunyon to me
As I was a skinny kid about sixteen
And I was scared to death when we walked into that camp
None of the lumberjacks paid any attention to me at first
But when my pa told the boss that me and him wanted a job
A lot of 'em stopped their work to see what was gonna happen
That big boss walked around me looked me up and down and said
Mister I believe that boy is made out of second growth timber and I guess I was
Everybody but me and pa had a big laugh over it
Pa got kinda mad and the boss finally said he might start me out as a high climber
I didn't know what a high climber was boy I sure learned fast
That steel corded rope cut my back and that axe
I thought it was gonna break my arms off but I stuck with it
It wasn't long till I learned that a man's got to be
A lot tougher than the timber he's cuttin'
Finally I could swing that crosscut saw with the best of them

3.
LUMBERJACK
(Leon Payne)
« © '60 Acuff-Rose Music, BMI / Unichappell Music, BMI »

I lived on a farm out in Iowa
I pulled the corn and I worked in the hay
Got trapped by a girl but I wiggled free
Heard the Oregon timber callin' me

Will you tell me somethin' Mr Lumberjack
Is it one for forward and three for back
Is it two for stop or four for go
Foy ask a whistle punk I don't know

Well I learned this fact from a logger named Ray
You don't cut timber on a windy day
Stay out of the woods when the moisture's low
Or you ain't gonna live to collect your doe

Will you tell me somethin' Mr Lumberjack...

Well you work in the woods from morning till night
You laugh and sing and you cuss and fight
On Saturday night you go to Eugene's
And on a Sunday morning your pockets are clean

Will you tell me somethin' Mr Lumberjack...
**********
Ride this train to Bogaloosa Louisiana see these swamps and forest
Man's never set foot in a lot of it
You'll find aligator mink coon possum squirrel otter and the lakes're full of fish
You'll find places so virgin and fresh
That you'd think the Lord just created it yesterday
As a matter of fact some people say when this world was made
A whole lot of it just must have looked like southern Louisiana does now
In 1788 I left Halifax Nova Scotia with about two hundred other Acadians
We made a long tiring journey south
In our party of two hundred there was this beautiful girl
That I just haven't quite been able to forget
Dorraine was her name and Dorraine and I were
Well we were kinda pledged to each other
And then we said when we got to the promised land
We'd build us a house and someday we'd have
The biggest sugar-cane plantation in the country
And I used to make Dorraine blush
When I'd tell her we'd raise the biggest family in the country too

4.
DORRAINE OF PONCHARTRAIN
(Johnny Cash)
« © '60 Anne Rachel Music, ASCAP / Song Of Cash Music, ASCAP »

As I walked by the lake one day by chance my Dorraine passed my way
Then she and I walked hand in hand on the banks of Ponchartrain
I pinned a flower on her heart I swore we'd never be apart
She vowed her love forever and as I kissed her did the same
Dorraine my Dorraine my dark haired little angel my belle of Ponchartrain
We sat down on the dock and with our hearts and fingers locked
We laughed and talked and joked about when our names are the same
And joking I said honey are you marrying me for money
And it took just one quick look to tell it hurt my dear Dorraine
She jumped and stood above me and she cried why you don't love me
I'm rowing home across the lake you won't see me again
I called and called some more but she rowed fast from the shore
And the clouds brought by a wind began to rain on Ponchartrain
Dorrain I called Dorrain come back my little angel my belle of Ponchartrain
The storm should make her learn that she should make a swift return
But as the rain fell harder I lost sight of my Dorraine
As panic gripped my heart I drew the oars and made my start
To look for her on raging waters and the rain on Ponchartrain
At darkness I still called but no one heard my cries at all
And when the daybreak came then others helped me look for my Dorraine
But there was not a thing afloat except the oars from her rowboat
For all was lost upon the choppy waves and rain on Ponchartrain
Now I come day after day to where my sweetheart rowed away
And I gaze across the water of the rainy Ponchartrain
Just one thing and nothing more ever floated back to shore
Twas this flower I hold it is the one I pinned on my Dorraine
Dorraine my Dorraine my dark haired little angel my belle of Ponchartrain
**********

Ride this train to Pionridge Mississippi see that levee there
It's built to hold back the waters of Ol' Man River when he gets on a rampage
And he gets on a rampage believe me
One of these days he's gonna come right over that levee
And we're gonna have to head for the hills again
And you know how that levee was built Mister
Not with machines it is built with elbow grease
They got the men off the farms out of the houses
Even out of the honky tonks on Saturday night
I don't hardly know how it happened to me it happens fast
I just remember I was in the Green Lantern in Natchez one Saturday night
And somebody pulled a knife and somebody threw the bottle
And the next thing I knew I had a chain on my leg and a shovel in my hand
It seemed like the whole world come down on me
They whipped us like miles and when they did feed us
There was always a fight or a killin' over who's gonna get the biggest piece of meet
Whereas the boss man did't care about the killin'
That is less you killed a good worker then you get killed
If you complain about anything he just liable to give you a chance to get away
You know what I mean
They take the chains off your legs and beg you to run so they can shoot you

5.
GOING TO MEMPHIS
(John A. Lomax - Holly Dew)
« © '60 Ludlow Music, BMI »

Bring a drink of water Leroy bring a drink of water (no)
If I could get to mercy man he's give me some I know
I got a gal in Vickburg Bertha is her name
Wish I's tied to Bertha instead of this ball and chain
I'm goin' to Memphis (that's right Lord) yeah (uh huh)
But dues took all my money wouldn't let me see the cards
I owen the boss about a hundred years for sleepin' in his backyard
I'm goin' to Memphis (yeah Memphis) yeah I'm goin' to Memphis (now)

Like a bitter weed I'm a bad seed but when that levee's thru and I am too
Let the honky tonk roll on come mornin' I'll be gone
I'm goin' to Memphis yeah Memphis

I never been to Chicago but it must be a mighty fine place (that's right)
I couldn't get past Tennessee with Mississippi all over my face (uh huh)
I'm goin' to Memphis (that's right Lord Memphis)
Well the freezin' ground at night is my own foldin' bed
Polk salad is my bread and meat and it will be till I'm dead
Well I brought me a little water in a Mr Prince Albert can
But the bossman caught me drinkin' it and I believe he broke my hand (hm hm)
They all call me crazy for sassin' Mr Scott
My brother was killed for a deed I did but I disremember what (yeah)
Well another boy is down the shovel burned him out
Let me stand on his body to see what the shoutin's about
I'm goin' to Memphis yeah I'm goin' to Memphis hmm

Like a bitter weed I'm a bad seed...
**********

Ride this train to any country fair in this land now here's a hard working happy people
Mrs Jones baked the finest pie for the contest this year
And Mr Brown's got the biggest fattest old sow you ever saw
And all the kids are eatin' popcorn and cotton candy
This is Chester South Carolina and that year at the fair
My papa brought us all down in a wagon
And on the way down we picked up another family that lived up the creek
I was just a little boy but I remember I kept askin' papa
How much farther is it how much farther is it
We had a young haffa tied to the wagon that papa just knew
Was gonna take first prize
I didn't have no doubt about that haffa winning first prize
But the main thing I was interested in
Was somethin' else papa had under his seat at the front of the wagon
And that was an old dobro that I thought papa played like nobody else in the world
I guess by real musical standards papa didn't know much about music
But I tell you that night at the fair when he played in the dance band
I just had to stay awake sat up there and listen to papa play the dobro

6.
WHEN PAPA PLAYED THE DOBRO
(Johnny Cash)
« © '60 House Of Cash, BMI »

My papa was a hobo when they delivered me
We didn't have a doctor cause he couldn't pay the fee
But when the goin' got too bad to ease his misery
Papa played the dobro this a way and he'd go
[ dobro ]
When company would come around he kept the dobro hid
He knew he couldn't play the way the other players did
Why the guitar's resonator was a gallon bucket lid
But papa played the dobro this a way and he'd go
[ dobro ]
Well now that papa's gone away it's hanging by the flue
The top of it's rusted and the strings're rusty too
It won't ever sound the way that it did when it was new
When papa played the dobro this a way and he'd go
[ dobro ]
**********

Ride this train to Dyess Arkansas see this cottonland
Some of us are so poor now you'd have to sell 'em a sack of fertilizer
To raise an umbrella
They grade the cotton according to the length and strength of the fibre
And they been raisin' a lot of fair to middlin' grade here which ain't good
But there was a time
Yeah there was a time when the cotton grew tall
Not far from here I had the finest plantation you ever saw
About 600 acres of the finest cottonland in the country
Now I believe this was about 1855 and I had a bumper crop that year
I had the best bunch of slaves you ever saw and I treated 'em right
Well a lot of em even stayed with me after the war
But gettin' back to what I was gonna tell you
See I have a rule that all the slaves got to be back in out of the fields
And accounted for by sundown every day
And one day when they came in there was one short
Well I found out right away that it was old uncle Moses that was missin'
And figured that somethin' might have happened to him old as he was
So I went out into the cottonfield to look for him
Well uncle Moses was way down at the end of the road sittin' on his cottonsack
Well I walked up and said Uncle Moses don't you know the rule
That you're supposed to be punished if you're not back in and accounted for by dark
And he said Boss Jack I know that sir
But I was pickin' along on my road
And all of a sudden somethin' seemed to come over me
And the finest words started comin' through my head and the finest music
So I rememorized them words and that music till I had it all in my head
Now that I got the song all through I guess Boss Jack
I was ready to take my punishment
Well I didn't hardly know what to say
But I asked Uncle Moses to sing that song for me
And he stood up there and for the first time he sang Swing Low Sweet Chariot
Well after that I kinda laid old Uncle Moses off and let him peddle around the house
And every night at dark you could hear him sing
And he sang another song once in a while that made me feel awful proud

7.
BOSS JACK
(Tex Ritter)
« © '60 Vidor Publications, BMI »

Pick a lot o'cotton drag a long sack
Comin' across the field well I see Boss Jack
He's a ridin' straddle of a single foot roan
When you know that horse you'll leave him alone

The ole roan's got green in his eyes
Mean as the devil and twice as wise
A fire in his nose and a bow in his back
Can't nobody ride him but Boss Jack

Come on children bend your back
Work a little faster fill your sack
Then you hitch up the wagon take it to the gin
Finish pickin' before the winter sets in
[ ac.guitar ]
Now here while back when the crop was laid by
Remember who took us on a big fish fry
Caught a heap of catfish goggle eye and carp
Dashed and sang to the guitar and the harp

Well someday old Boss Jack is gonna set us all free
Gabriel gonna blow for you and me
Angels gonna bring that chariot from above
Floppin' there wings like a turtle dove

Come on children bend your back...
**********

Ride this train let me show you a land of rolling hills and tall corn
A land of hard working people where rewards are often very small
This is Pella Iowa
My mother and father brought me here in 1847 we came from Cork Ireland
We had a potato famine over there and things had been pretty rough for us
I remember during the potato famine in Ireland I'd trail along at father's feet
And we'd try to find enough potatoes for a meal
And we'd take em back in to mother and she'd cook em coats and all
Well finally we gave up and somehow we made it to America
Well our new neighbors here in Pella loaned father oxen
And ploughs to make his first crop with
And you never saw taller corn that year than it was on our place
The next season why we were even lendin' out ploughs and oxen to other farms
That's the way it was here in the new land
Everybody helped everybody out if you got sick everybody came to visit
Even the doctor wouldn't take pay if he thought you couldn't afford it
But old Doc Brown was always there if you ever needed him

8.
OLD DOC BROWN
(Red Foley)
« © '55 Unichappell Music, BMI »

He was just an old country doctor in a little country town
Fame and fortune had passed him by though we never saw him frown
As day by day in his kindly way he'd serve us one and all
Many a patient forgot to pay although Doc's fees were small
Though he needed his dimes and there were times that he'd receive a fee
He'd pass it onto some poor soul that needed it worse than he
He had to sell his furniture couldn't pay his office rent
So to a dusty room over a livery stable Doc Brown and his satchel went
And on the hitchin' post at the kerb below to advertise his wares
He nailed a little sign that read Doc Brown has moved upstairs
And one day he didn't answer when they knocked upon his door
Old Doc Brown was layin' down but his soul was no more
They found him there in that old black suit on his face was a smile of content
But all the money they could find on him was a quarter and a copper cent
So they opened up his ledger and what they saw gave their hearts a pull
Beside each debtor's name old Doc had write these words Paid In Full
Old Doc should had a funeral fine enough for a king
It's a ghastly joke our town was broke and no one could give a thing
Cept Jones an undertaker he did mighty well
Donated an old iron casket he had never been able to sell
And the funeral procession it wasn't much for grace and pomp and the style
But those wagon loads of mourners they stretched out for more than a mile
We wanted to give him a monument we kinda figured we owed him one
Cause he made our town a better place for all the good he'd done
We pulled up that old hitchin' post where Doc had nailed a sign
We'd painted it white and to all of us it certainly did look fine
Now the rains and the snows have washed away our white trimmin's of paint
There ain't nothin' left but Doc's own sign and that's gettin' pretty faint
But you can still see that old hitchin' post as if in answer to our prayers
Mutually tellin' the whole wide world Doc Brown has moved upstairs

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