Feb 28 2010

In the shuffling madness

of the locomotive breath his bipartisanship fantasy,

runs the all-time loser

headlong to his death

oh he feels the piston scraping

steam breaking on his brow

old Charlie stole the handle and

the train it won’t stop going

no way to slow down

8 comments

Skip to comment form

    • Edger on February 28, 2010 at 17:36
      Author
    • #

    • Diane G on February 28, 2010 at 17:58
    • #

  3. Peter Green, IMHO, was one of the best, if not THE best, white blues guitar players of all time until he went schizo, gave all his money away and was in and out of psyche wards. This is from a great and under-rated Fleetwood Mac album before they went commercial…great stuff!! I also have an old Otis Spann version of this song somewhere (Otis plays piano on this cut). They may have been singing about an early form of the Patriot Act, this song was originally popularized during the “Red Scare” in the ’50s.

    from Wikipedia:

    Fleetwood Mac In Chicago/Blues Jam In Chicago Vols. 1 & 2 was the result of a recording session in early 1969, at Chess Records in Chicago (home to Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, et al.) with Fleetwood Mac, then a British (electric) blues band, and some of their Chicago blues mentors.

    Fleetwood Mac: Jeremy Spencer (vocals, guitar, slide guitar); Danny Kirwan (vocals, guitar); Peter Green (vocals, guitar); John McVie (bass guitar); Mick Fleetwood (drums).

    Mentors: Otis Spann (vocals, piano); David Honeyboy Edwards, Buddy Guy (guitar); Walter “Shakey” Horton (harmonica); J. T. Brown (tenor saxophone); Willie Dixon (acoustic bass guitar); S.P. Leary (drums)

    Lyrics:

    Now you know the world’s all in a tangle man

    Everybody begin to sing this song

    The reds are just over yonder boys

    And we ain’t gonna be here long

    That’s why I’m gonna build myself a cave

    Move down in the ground

    When I go into the army babe

    Won’t be no more reds around

    Now you know I got my personary man [note: best translation]

    I’ve got my class tattoo

    I begin to feel so worried

    I just don’t know what to do

    That’s why I’m gonna build myself a cave

    Move down in the ground

    When I go into the army babe

    Won’t be no more reds around me

    Now you know the world’s all in a tangle man

    Everybody begin to sing this song

    The reds are just over yonder boys

    And we ain’t gonna be here long

    That’s why I’m gonna build myself a cave

    Move down in the ground

    When I go into the army babe

    Won’t be no more reds around me

  4. “Who is in charge of the clattering train?

    The axles creak and the couplings strain;

    And the pace is hot, and the points are near,

    And Sleep has deadened the driver’s ear;

    And the signals flash through the night in vain,

    For Death is in charge of the clattering train.”

    A poem that Churchill learned from the British magazine Punch and considered using in a 1935 parliamentary debate about how to handle the situation with Hitler, but did not.  It was, however cited in his memoirs (and he wished he had used it), and was used in the HBO movie “The Gathering Storm”.

Comments have been disabled.