Well up in the evening down in Mobile, Alabama

Working on the railroad with the steel driving hammer

Gotta make some money to buy some brand new shoes

Trying to find somebody to take away these blues

"She don't love me" hear them singing in the sun

Payday's coming and my work is all done



Later in the evening when the sun is sinking low

All day I been waiting for the whistle to blow

Sitting in a tepee built right on the tracks

Rolling them bones until the foreman comes back

Pick up you belongings boys and scatter about

We've got an off-schedule train comin two miles about



Everybody's trembling and running around

Picking up their money, tearing the tepee down

Foreman wants a penny (?) about to go insane

Trying to get the workers out the way of the train

Engineer blowing the whistle loud and long

Can't stop the train, gotta let it roll on