This is song I wrote about a Train Ride on the Sunset limited several years ago, before it crashed in a swamp behind my house just a few months later. I spent almost three days straight riding to NYC, and three days riding back. It really affected me. I saw a lot and a lot ended up in the song…
Lyrics Copyright © Wendell G. Sweet 2010 ♪ ♫ ♪ Date Written, 11-26-2010
Song Title: Rode The Limited Style: Alt
Verse 1
Rode the limited… Halfway across America… Up through the south-lands and into the frozen north… Day on day… Listening to the sound of the steel rails…
Met so many people on that train and some of the faces still remain… Son’s and daughters… Mothers and fathers… A sad young woman riding next to me… Night after night… Stars painted on her fingernails…
And she dreamed her dreams… Yes she dreamed her dreams… Oh she dreamed her dreams… As the train rolled on…
Instrumental—————- Acoustic run through of the verse structure ——————————–
Verse 2
Drinking a beer from the bar, and watching the world go by… Sliding by the windows of the car and falling away to wherever memories go… Making peanut butter crackers… With the little boy across the aisle…
I laid my hands on his mother’s swollen belly… I felt her baby move, as I and her little one ate our lunch in the aisle at her feet… Oh it made me feel… As alive as the baby in her womb… Made me smile… Oh it made me smile…
And I dreamed my dreams… Yes I dreamed my dreams… Oh I dreamed my dreams… And the train rolled on…
Hook 1
And the days slid by, riding on the Limited… All the towns and villages we visited…
And the time slipped by, living in the slow lane… Traveling across my world by train.
Verse 3
Made up a story … … … In my head … About the sad young woman riding next to me… It was how… somebody broke her heart and stole her smile… Um hmm… Left her sad inside instead…
Then she said hello with a smile and her face became something beautiful. We talked the night away until she fell asleep lying against my arm… She slept so deep… Like she was sleeping in her own room… In her own bed.
And she dreamed her dreams… Yes she dreamed her dreams… Oh she dreamed her dreams… As the train rolled on…
Verse 4
My last night passed me by like pages in a book… The boy with his belly full of crackers sleeping next to me… Yeah… And the girl with the broken heart, she dreamed her dreams as we rolled on through the night… Walking on the other side…
Watched the world slide by… The towns and cities we passed… … Spots of light… … Spots of life gathered here and there.. I rode the limited across America… I rode the limited across America… it was a good long ride… It was a good long ride…
And I dreamed my dreams… Yes I dreamed my dreams… Oh I dreamed my dreams… And the train rolled on…
Hook 1
And the days slid by, riding on the Limited… All the towns and villages we visited…
And the time slipped by living in the slow lane… Traveling my world by train.
Dreaming my dreams… Dreaming my dreams… As the train rolled on…
Why I Wrote It: *
I took a train trip on the Sunset Limited from Alabama to New York and then back many years ago. This is the story about some of what happened. I could probably write several songs about it. That train trip has found it’s way into my writing, lyrics, books, short stories. It was probably one of the most memorable things I have even done. Just sort of stepping out of life for several days.
The pregnant mother and her little boy were real. We really did make peanut butter crackers and sit in the aisle and eat them. The sad girl next to me was real too…
* There is music written for these lyrics.
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