FFV - Townes Van Zandt

Well, along come the FFV, the swiftest on the line

Running along the C&O 'road twenty minutes behind

Running in the Seville headquarters on the line

Receiving their strict orders from a station just behind

Well, George’s mother come to him with a bucket on her arm

Saying, «My darling boy, be careful how you run

Well, it’s many a man has lost his life in trying to make lost time

But if you run your engine right, you’ll make her just on time»

Aw, but off of the road she darted and into the rocks she crashed

Well, the engine she laid upside down and George’s breast was smashed

Well, his head lay against the firebox door and the flames were rolling high

Well, I’m proud to be born for an engineer on the C&O 'road to die

Well, the doctor come to Georgie, my darling boy be still

Well, your life can yet be saved, if it is God’s blessed will

Aw, no, no, it will not do, I want to fly so free

Well I want to die with the engine I love, a hundred and forty three

Then the doctor said to Georgie, «Well your life cannot be saved»

Murdered out on the railroad, laid in a lonesome grave

But his face was all covered up with blood, his eyes, they could not see

And the very last words that Georgie spoke were «Nearer my God to thee»