We grew up to daily sound
Of whistles coming down the track;
You were to be an engineer,
And I would work the train in back

But by the time we turned eighteen
The trains no longer came:
To take stock from the factory,
Some fat cat was to blame

The trains are never coming back;
The factories aren’t, either —
We grew up full of hope and pride,
And now we’re left with neither

And so, down at the cannery,
We started our careers;
The hours grew less frequent and
Our loans were in arrears

They took off all my furniture,
Then they took yours as well;
The power and the plumbing went,
But no one took the smell

The trains are never coming back;
The factories aren’t, either —
We grew up full of hope and pride,
And now we’re left with neither

So I became a junkman and
You scratched around for pay;
Until I heard you hanged yourself
One dark and windy day

I stood beside your widow, and
My face was wet with tears;
For I had known you, boy and man,
For more than fifty years

The trains are never coming back;
The factories aren’t, either —
We grew up full of hope and pride,
And now we’re left with neither

The townsfolk think I’m crazy now,
‘Cause I talk with a stutter;
But I ain’t talking much to them,
Instead, I mostly mutter

I was to be a trainman, and
He was to be a boss;
And some old man who hangs himself –
Hell, that ain’t much a loss

The trains are never coming back;
The factories aren’t, either —
We grew up full of hope and pride,
And now we’re left
With neither