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Conductor (3:54): For Harriet Tubman, who wrote, “"I was conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can't say – I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.”

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CONDUCTOR
"I was conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can't say – I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.” –Harriet Tubman

I’m the conductor on a railroad
That has no tracks or ties
That heads out after midnight
Beneath the cloud-black skies
There are no rocks or gravel
There is no slate or stone
The conductor on a railroad
That runs on hope alone

I drive this train through swamps
By the long dry riverbed
The conductor on a railroad
That carries the living dead
Through black and thorny woods
Heading always towards the light
The conductor on a railroad
That only runs at night
Refrain: I will guide this train
I will bring it home
No one should ride this train alone

Going slowly through the dark
Traveling mostly underground
The conductor on a railroad
That never makes a sound
We run through dead of winter
When nights are long and black
Through harsh and bitter weather
Never ran it off the track

We go silent through the fields
Up and down the living hills
I never lost a passenger
God grant I never will
Through towns named Good and Evil
'Cross roads called Hate and Fear
We will reach our destination
Thousand miles North from here

Refrain (2x)

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Saro Lynch-Thomason North Carolina

Saro Lynch-Thomason is a ballad singer, song writer, folklorist, documentarian, and illustrator from Asheville, North Carolina. Her passion for traditional music, people’s struggles and Appalachian traditions calls her to perform, teach and produce media that tell the stories and songs of America’s social history. ... more

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