© 1983 Neal Gladstone

I was makin a run one New Year's Eve
Man you better believe I was fried
I was two days shy on sleep, had a gut full of concrete
And a killer migraine half a mile wide
It was snowin like a bitch, there was semi's in the ditch
And you couldn't tell which way as up for sure
The wind was rippin from the north and I was flippin back and forth
Like a mama walleye tryin to shake a lure

 

Now my eyeballs burned like a pair of combat signal flares

And whether I could stay awake I had my doubts

But if I pulled off for a nap I might get buried in this crap

And then it'd take a crane to pull me out

So I drank a few more rounds of pureéd coffee grounds

And used some words I never learned to spell

By now the traction was so bad it took near everything I had

Just to keep that heavy mother parallel

 

And I'm one of them crazy truckers

One of Mother Nature's suckers

For a life as free as wind and hard as nails

I been baked and soaked and frozen

As I rolled between the oceans

And I spent a night or two in a county jail

But there's nothin like the hummin

Of that open highway comin

And stretchin out as far as you can see

It's a life of steak and gravy

If it doesn't drive you crazy

The road's the sweetest place a man can be

 

Now there was no way I could know as I crippled through the snow

With my fryin eyelids clickin out Morse Code

But a Southern Central freight was steamin open throttle straight

Toward a railroad crossing a half a mile down the road

By now my body ached for sleep like a grizzly bear in heat

And a man can only hold out for so long

And as I passed a sign that read: "Railroad Crossing" just ahead

My lids dropped one last time and I was gone

 

CHORUS

 

I don't know how long I was out or what that nightmare was about

But some ungodly rumble brought me back

And I pried open my eyes just in time to realize

I was sprawlin jack-knifed clean across the track

A screamin airhorn split the night as my knuckles twisted white

And the sound of thunder turned my plasma sour

And through my icy pane I saw a mother-loving train

Bearin down on me at 60 miles an hour

 

Well I quivered like a beetle on a bug collector's needle

And I whimpered as my backbone turned to slime

And when I saw them sparks appear the message came home loud and clear

Only an act of God could stop that train in time

Then that engine filled my eyes like a 90-story high-rise

And I heard a sound no man has lived to tell

Then my tractor caught the force of a hundred thousand horse

And I rode that screamin diesel into hell

 

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