Ride this train up and down and across a strange wonderful land    It's almost like a fairyland when you to think about it    You go through places with names like Tuscaloosa Kokomo Muskogee Oshkosh Saginaw    Eureka Bandera Battle Creek Sioux City Chattanooga    Hattiesburg Lynchburg and Baltinare Arkansas    You see I'm a million different people from all over the world    And I've been coming to this country for hundreds of years    This was the Promised Land for me    But let's not forget that when I came here    There were already millions of people living in teepees along the rivers    And hunting deer and buffalo for food and shelter    And it's with a little regret that I think of how I pushed them back    And crowded them out to claim this land for myself or for another country    But the Indians' hearts must have been full of music    For they left names with me that seem to sing    Names like Mohawk Mandan Kickapoo Cree Yacoma Seminole Crow Shawnee    Choctaw Delaware Fox Paiute Winnebago Cheyenne Blackfoot    Navajo Ute Comanche Quapaw Creek Apache Sioux Chippewa    Ardua Hupa Shoshone Mow Hicano Sage Menomini    Shinouk Arapaho Nez Perce Iroquois Pony Cutenai    Flathead Chickasaw Pueblo Yuma Pima Pomo Caddo    Well a lot of them are still with me and I'm glad    It's for sure their names will always be with me    But let's look a little at the heart and muscle of this land    Few things you don't read in books things that aren't taught in school    Now you take this little town we're goin' through here this is Beach Creek Kentucky    And right down there in the valley that's where our house used to be    It was a little shotgun shack with a spring out back    And a smokehouse and another little bitty house and that's about all    My pa was a coalminer like most everybody in Mulengerg County    Worked in the mines all his life    I guess he didn't have much ambition to do anything else    Cause they say coalmining kinda gets in your blood    Matter of fact pa said if they ever drained the blood out of him    It would be blacker than black strap moulesen    When I was a kid I used to sit at the fireplace there with mom    And wait on pa to get in from the mine    And we'd sure get anxious if he was ever late    Ma would rock back and forth and watch the clock listin' for pa to hit the front porch    Then he'd come in nothin' clean but the whites of his eyes    And he'd reach for that lie-soap and starts scrubbin'    And I'd stand back and watch him and say to myself    Boy I'll be glad when I get big enough to work in the mines