The Mark Heard Tribute Project banner 300x64
BIO
DISCOGRAPHY
LYRICS
ARCHIVE







Freight Train To Nowhere

Miss misfortune sails down the rails
with her brow to the windowpane
The scenery that she sees in her soul
doesn't match with the blur in her brain
She can trace the tricks of the tracks
like the ribs of a rattlesnake
'Til all her pastel chalk lines of fact
are erased like a schoolgirl's slate

She is reading her own tattoos
Her diary is the evening news
She can't give a damn on cue
On a freight train to nowhere

If she were not scorching the rails
with the haste of a bolting ghost
There would be no reason to fear
the death-rattle in the engine's throat
She could call for the minicams
or take up a gun or be politically correct
But that kind of justice still preys
on the ones with the stones hung
around their necks

She is reading her own tattoos
Her diary is the evening news
She can't give a damn on cue
On a freight train to nowhere

She's heard it said by the drone in her head
That the wages of spend is debt
She figures that's better than nothing
to show for the years of tears and sweat
If she could put her hand on the brake of the land
Find the treason in the diesel and the smoke
She would jar the teeth of the dull and the meek
and feed them the truth until they choke

She is reading her own tattoos
Her diary is the evening news
She can't give a damn on cue
On a freight train to nowhere

Written by Mark Heard © 1992 Ideola Music/ASCAP