#418 - Perhaps He's on the Railway

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• Composer:
  • Killian Jordan, 1871
• Also known as:
  • Perhaps She's On the Railway
• MIDI | show
  
• Incipit: 511121111234233533132171765
• Condensed Incipit: 51212342353132171765
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• Lyrics:
  Behold in me a wretched man,
  Quite broken down by woe,
  I've lost my wife and cannot find
  Her anywhere I go;
  At first she robb'd me of my heart
  And now she's flown from me,
  And taken all my furniture,
  Wherever can she be?
  
  chorus:
  Perhaps she's on the railway
  With a swell so fair,
  Perhaps she's up in a balloon,
  Flying thro' the air,
  Perhaps she's dead, perhaps alive,
  Perhaps she's on the sea;
  Perhaps she's gone to Brigham Young
  A Mormonite to be.
  
  She read so much of Mormonites,
  Of nothing else she'd talk,
  And with a sanctified young chap
  Each day she used to walk;
  She said he was a Mormon saint
  From far across the sea,
  I have not seen her for a week,
  Wherever can she be?
  
  She can't respect the marriage vows,
  that faithfully she swore,
  I only hope her Mormon spouse
  Has fifty wives or more;
  I hope he'll thrash her ev'ry night
  when he comes home to tea,
  I hope they'll always row and fight
  Wherever they may be.
  
  I hope she'll have a lot of hungry,
  Squalling brats to keep,
  I hope they'll cry all night all night,
  And never let her go to sleep,
  I hope her chimneys all may smoke,
  Her lodgers never pay,
  And German bands and organ men
  Annoy her all the day.
  
  If she is in the railway train
  I hope that it will smash;
  If up in a balloon I hope
  She'll fall out with a crash;
  If on the road to Salt Lake, then,
  I hope she may get drowned,
  Then I will get another wife,
  And quickly, I'll be bound.
  
  • Frank Dumont

    • #166 - The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane
    • #254 - Jennie, the Flower of Kildare
    • #418 - Perhaps He's on the Railway

    (1848-1919), 1871

Other arrangements are found by Charles McCarthy or C. Hunt.