Starlight on the Rails – Bruce 'Utah' Phillips, as sung by Rosalie Sorrels
Video with singing by Rosalie Sorrels. Recorded by Rosalie Sorrels on her CD "Strangers In Another Country." SheetMusic(pdf)

I can hear the whistle blowing         /C/C/G7/G7/
High and lonesome as can be,         /G7/G7/C/C/
Tonight the rain is softly falling      /F/F/C/C/
And it’s falling just for me.        /G7/G7/C/C/

    Looking back along the road I’ve travelled    /G7/G7/C/C/
    The miles can tell a million tales.                    /G7/G7/C/C/
    Each year is like some rolling freight train,   /C/F/C/C/
    It’s cold as starlight on the rails                       /G7/G7/C/C/

I think about my home and family,
My house and all the things it means;
The black smoke trailing out behind me
Is like a string of broken dreams.

Now if you live out on the highway
You’re like a clock that can't tell time;
And if you spend your life just ramblin'
You’re like a song that doesn't rhyme.

"This comes from reading of Thomas Wolfe. He had a very deep understanding of the music in language. Every now and then he wrote something that stuck in my ear and would practically demand to be made into a song." Utah Phillips.

Thomas Wolfe wrote: "We walked along a road in Cumberland and stooped, because the sky hung down so low; and when we ran away from London, we went by little rivers in a land just big enough. And nowhere that we went was far: the earth and the sky were close and near. And the old hunger returned —the terrible and obscure hunger that haunts and hurts Americans, and makes us exiles at home and strangers wherever we go.
Oh, I will go up and down the country and back and forth across the country. I will go out West where the states are square. I will go to Boise and Helena, Albuquerque and the two Dakotas and all the unknown places.
Brother, have you heard the roar of the fast express? Have you seen starlight on the rails?"

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