In the sapling years of the post war world
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In an English market town
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I do believe we travelled in schoolboy blue
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The cap upon the crown
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Books on knee
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Our faces pressed against the dusty railway carriage panes
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As all our lives went rolling on the clicking wheels of trains
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The school years passed like eternity
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And at last were left behind
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And it seemed the city was calling me
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To see what I might find
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Almost grown, I stood before horizons made of dreams
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I think I stole a kiss or two while rolling on the clicking
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wheels of trains
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Trains
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All our lives were a whistle stop affair
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No ties or chains
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Throwing words like fireworks in the air
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Not much remains
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A photograph in your memory
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Through the coloured lens of time
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All our lives were just a smudge of smoke against the sky
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The silver rails spread far and wide
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Through the nineteenth century
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Some straight and true, some serpentine
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From the cities to the sea
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And out of sight
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Of those who rode in style there worked the military mind
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On through the night to plot and chart the twisting paths of
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trains
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On the day they buried Jean Juarez
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World War One broke free
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Like an angry river overflowing
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Its banks impatiently
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While mile on mile
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The soldiers filled the railway stations arteries and veins
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I see them now go laughing on the clicking wheels of trains
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Trains
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Rolling off to the front
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Across the narrow Russian gauge
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Weeks turn into months
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And the enthusiasm wanes
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Sacrifices in seas of mud, and still you don't know why
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All their lives are just a puff of smoke against the sky
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Then came surrender, then came the peace
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Then revolution out of the east
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Then came the crash, then came the tears
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Then came the thirties, the nightmare years
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Then came the same thing over again
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Mad as the moon
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That watches over the plain
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Oh, driven insane
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But oh what kind of trains are these
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That I never saw before
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Snatching up the refugees
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From the ghettoes of the war
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To stand confused
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With all their worldly goods, beneath the watching guard's disdain
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As young and old go rolling on the clicking wheels of trains
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And the driver only does this job
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With vodka in his coat
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And he turns around and he makes a sign
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With his hand across his throat
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For days on end
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Through sun and snow, the destination still remains the same
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For those who ride with death above the clicking wheels of trains
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Trains
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What became of the innocence
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They had in childhood games
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Painted red or blue
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When I was young they all had names
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Who'll remember the ones who only rode in them to die
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All their lives are just a smudge of smoke against the sky
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Now forty years have come and gone
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And I'm far away from there
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And I ride the Amtrak from NewYork City
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To Philadelphia
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And there's a man to bring you food and drink
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And sometimes passengers exchange
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A smile or two rolling on the humming wheels
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But I can't tell you if it's them
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Or if it's only me
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But I believe when they look outside
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They don't see what I see
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Over there
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Beyond the trees it seems that I can just make out the stained
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Fields of Poland calling out to all the passing trains
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Trains
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I suppose that there's nothing
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In this life remains the same
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Everything is governed
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By the losses and the gains
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Still sometimes I get caught up in the past I can't say why
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All our lives are just a smudge of smoke
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Or just a breath of wind against the sky
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Trains
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| Al Stewart |
