1. “I’VE BEEN WORKING ON THE RAILROAD”
Originally , the call was about levees . Black laborers popularized it in the 1830s , later tack the lyrics as they start out building railway . The name “ Dinah ” typically referred to a distaff striver . And back then , the language were PG-13 . One verse line pass : “ Someone ’s make love to Dinah / Someone ’s making love I have a go at it . / Someone ’s making lovemaking to Dinah , / ’cause I ca n’t learn the honest-to-goodness banjo . ” ( Of course , back then , “ making sexual love ” meant coquetry . )
2. “DOWNTOWN TRAIN”
Although Tom Waits wrote the call , Rod Stewart made it a mainstream make in 1989 . It makes sense : Rod Stewart is a model train nut . While touring , he often works on train set pieces to loosen . His Beverly Hills home boasts a sprawling 23 x 124 - foot landscape painting of post - war Manhattan and Chicago , which he built himself . It almost takes up the whole third floor !
3. “BALLAD OF JOHN HENRY”
grant to historian Scott R. Nelson , John William Henry was a loose black Union soldier who had been jailed in Virginia during the 1870s . Henry was lease to a railroad track to help bang burrow , but unlike the myth , he plausibly did n’t pop off from a burst heart . Instead , the ill-famed steam drills , which kicked up clouds of silica detritus , in all probability caused Henry to choke of silicosis , a lung disease . However , historian still argue whether he or another material - sprightliness John Henry pep up the call .
4. “RHAPSODY IN BLUE”
George Gershwin was en itinerary to Boston when he dreamed up Rhapsody . “ It was on the caravan , with its steely rhythms , its rattling - ty bang , that is often so exhilarating to a composer — I ofttimes learn music in the very heart of racket … and there I suddenly listen , and even view on theme — the complete construction of the Rhapsody , from beginning to end , ” he told biographer Isaac Goldberg .
5. “CRAZY TRAIN”
Black Sabbath ’s two model railroad junky cooked up this Sung in 1980 . Guitarist Randy Rhoads and bassist Bob Daisley — both model wagon train collectors — were working on riff when Randy ’s pedals made a “ unearthly variety of chug sound ” in the A . “ Randy , that vocalize like a train , ” Bob tell , recalling the outcome for the website Songfacts . “ But it sounds junkie — a crazy train . ”
