This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
Listen to the jingle the rumble and the roar as she glides along the woodland
ore the hills and by the shore
hear the rush of the mighty engine hear the lonesome hobos call
he's riding through the jungle on the Wabash cannon ball
VERSE
now the western states are dandies so the southern people say from Chicago
and St. Louis
and Peoria by the way
to the lake of Minnesota where the rippling waters flow no chances to be
taken on
the Wabash cannon ball
VERSE
she pulled in to the station one cold December day
as she rolled up to the platform you could hear all the people say
now theirs a gal from Birmingham she's Elong and she's tall she came down
from Georgia
on the Wabash cannon ball
VERSE
now heres to daddy claxton may his name forever stand
and always be remembered in the courts of all the land
his earthly race is over and as the curtain falls
we'll carry him back to Dixie on the Wabash cannon ball
Wabash Cannonball
I was headed for Tolono on the Wabash Cannonball
Norfolk and Western all the way
St. Louis down the line, Detroit somewhere behind
I thought I heard that old conductor say
No round trip ticket, you're on the final run
This Cannonball is never comin' back
Tomorrow she'll just be another memory
And an echo down a rusty railroad track
I got off at Tolono, just below Champagne
A flagstop on the edge of yesterday
The whistle blew a song, I whispered "So long"
Waved my hand and slowly walked away
No round trip ticket, you're on the final run
This Cannonball is never comin' back
Tomorrow she'll just be another memory
And an echo down a rusty railroad track
I think about tomorrow, wonder why it is
We give up all the things we love the most
Goodbye, you old hog. I'll have to ride the Dog
Till they build a subway coast to coast
But no round trip ticket, you're on the final run
This Cannonball is never comin' back
Tomorrow she'll just be another memory
And an echo down a rusty railroad track
ore the hills and by the shore
hear the rush of the mighty engine hear the lonesome hobos call
he's riding through the jungle on the Wabash cannon ball
VERSE
now the western states are dandies so the southern people say from Chicago
and St. Louis
and Peoria by the way
to the lake of Minnesota where the rippling waters flow no chances to be
taken on
the Wabash cannon ball
VERSE
she pulled in to the station one cold December day
as she rolled up to the platform you could hear all the people say
now theirs a gal from Birmingham she's Elong and she's tall she came down
from Georgia
on the Wabash cannon ball
VERSE
now heres to daddy claxton may his name forever stand
and always be remembered in the courts of all the land
his earthly race is over and as the curtain falls
we'll carry him back to Dixie on the Wabash cannon ball
Wabash Cannonball
I was headed for Tolono on the Wabash Cannonball
Norfolk and Western all the way
St. Louis down the line, Detroit somewhere behind
I thought I heard that old conductor say
No round trip ticket, you're on the final run
This Cannonball is never comin' back
Tomorrow she'll just be another memory
And an echo down a rusty railroad track
I got off at Tolono, just below Champagne
A flagstop on the edge of yesterday
The whistle blew a song, I whispered "So long"
Waved my hand and slowly walked away
No round trip ticket, you're on the final run
This Cannonball is never comin' back
Tomorrow she'll just be another memory
And an echo down a rusty railroad track
I think about tomorrow, wonder why it is
We give up all the things we love the most
Goodbye, you old hog. I'll have to ride the Dog
Till they build a subway coast to coast
But no round trip ticket, you're on the final run
This Cannonball is never comin' back
Tomorrow she'll just be another memory
And an echo down a rusty railroad track
Lyrics submitted by SongMeanings
Wabash Cannonball/Tolono Lyrics as written by Bruce Phillips
Lyrics © MUSIC MANAGEMENT
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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