Al Stewart – Trains (Guitar)

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In the sapling years of the post war world in an English market town

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I do believe we travelled in schoolboy blue, the cap upon the crown

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Books on knee, 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 and at last were left behind

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And it seemed the city was calling me to see what I might find

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Almost grown, I stood before horizons made of dreams, I think I stole

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A kiss or two while rolling on the clicking wheels of trains

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Trains, all our lives were a whistle stop affair, no ties or chains

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Throwing words like fireworks in the air, not much remains

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A photograph in your memory 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 through the nineteenth century

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Some straight and true, some serpentine, from the cities to the sea

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And out of sight 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 trains

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On the day they buried Jean Juarez, World War One broke free

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Like an angry river overflowing, its banks impatiently

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While mile on mile 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, rolling off to the front across the narrow Russian gauge

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Weeks turn into months 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

Am
Then came surrender, then came the peace

E
Then revolution, out of the east

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Then came the crash, then came the tears

E
Then came the thirties, the nightmare years

F
Then came the same thing over again

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Mad as the moon that watches over the plain

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All driven insane

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But oh what kind of trains are these, that I never saw before

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Snatching up the refugees from the ghettoes of the war

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To stand confused, 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 with vodka in his coat

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And he turns around and he makes a sign with his hand across his throat

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For days on end, 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, What became of the innocence they had in childhood games?

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Painted red or blue, 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 and I'm far away from there

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And I ride the Amtrak from New York City to Philadelphia

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And there's a man to bring you food and drink 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 or if it's only me

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But I believe when they look outside they don't see what I see

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Over there, 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, I suppose that there's nothing in this life remains the same

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Everything is governed 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