Lyrics to
Railroad Man

This version of Railroad Man was released by Bill Withers in 1974.

Our About Bill Withers page at Decade Lyrics includes the lyrics for Railroad Man from 1974 as well as all of the other lyrics from Bill Withers that we have in our lyrics database.

Here's more interesting things in songs and lyrics tied to Bill Withers or about the 1970s in general.

Ad Lib
I was a little boy
Back in West Virginia
We lived very close to a railroad track
And I remember I used to dream about them trains
And where they might go
And the people that worked on the trains
And the train made music
It made you feel good
I can remember sometimes
I could just stand off all by myself
And just get funky list’nin’ to the train
And I used to pick up a handful of gravels
And throw ’em down on the ground for ties
Yeah and I’d make up songs
I’d sing

He was a railroad man
He was a railroad man
He was a railroad man
‘Til he stepped in front of the railroad train.

He rode across the plains
He rode on a fruit freight train
The hauled bananas to Savannah
And wore bandannas made in Old Japan.

He was a railroad man
He was a railroad man
He was a railroad man
‘Til he stepped in front of the railroad train.

He used to change his name
To every place he came
His name was Tex when he’s in Texas
And Bangor when he went to Maine.

He was a railroad man
He was a railroad man
He was a railroad man
‘Til he stepped in front of the railroad train.

It’s all right
Say you know it’s all right
If you’ve ever been downtown
You know what I’m talkin’ ’bout

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Want more lyrics and songs by Bill Withers?

Bill Withers has released many songs over the years besides Railroad Man. Bill Withers released songs from 1971 to 1985 spanning across albums like Just As I Am, Still Bill, Live At Carnegie Hall, #NAME?, Making Music, Making Friends, Naked & Warm, Menagerie, 'Bout Love, and Watching You, Watching Me. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by Bill Withers.

If you're a fan of lyrics from 1970s songs looking for more songs from 1974 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Railroad Man by Bill Withers

When you decide to study the lyrics to Railroad Man, you're looking at the words, verses and background chorus from the 1974 song by Bill Withers. Some of the lyrics to Railroad Man have clear meanings and some contain metaphorical references. Like most songs, only Bill Withers and their collaborators know the full story behind any of the their songs.

You can understand the lyrics to Railroad Man if you take apart the structure of the words. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to Railroad Man" means the words set to the music of Railroad Man, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by Bill Withers. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to Railroad Man and the lyrics to Railroad Man are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of Bill Withers who came here looking just for the lyrics to Railroad Man, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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