THE UNION TRAIN (trad./LEE HAYS) (1941)
(Tune: "The Old Ship of Zion")

THE ALMANAC SINGERS, 1941: WOODY GUTHRIE, LEE HAYS, MILLARD LAMPELL, PETE SEEGER
(left to right)

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During the 1930's the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union began to organize the sharecroppers and farm laborers in the rich cotton country of the Mississippi delta. Many of these workers were Negroes, and at their union meetings they sang the hymns they had known from childhood. At one such meeting near Memphis, Tennessee, after they had sung the spiritual "The Old Ship of Zion," a woman at the back started singing a new verse to the familiar tune. Later Lee Hays added more verses, and thus the "Union Train" began to roll.

Edith Fowke and Joe Glazer, Songs of Work and Protest, New York, NY, 1973, p. 35.

Lyrics as reprinted (with minor corrections by Manfred Helfert) in Ronald D. Cohen & Dave Samuelson, liner notes for "Songs for Political Action," Bear Family Records BCD 15720 JL, 1996, p. 85.
ORIGINAL ISSUE: "TALKING UNION" Keynote K 301 B (Keynote album 106), July 1941
[LEE HAYS, lead vocal]

Oh, what is that I see yonder coming, coming, coming...
Oh, what is that I see yonder coming, coming, coming...
Oh, what is that I see yonder coming, coming, coming...
Get on board, get on board!

It's that union train a-coming...

It has saved a many a thousand...

It will save a many more thousand...

It will carry us to freedom...

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