Casey Jones 

Dominic Vautier  27/2012

When Casey Jones appeared in print, Lawrence Seibert and Eddie Newton were credited with writing it.  But you could make a case that they were not really the original authors.  Seibert and Newton first heard the song when some railroad workers were humming it and decided it was worth a try.  Railroad crews often applied this music to various catastrophes, which unfortunately happened all the time, and just used the same tune to go with each accident, substituting in any new victims' names.  The song in this case referred to an unfortunate railroad engineer, one Casey Jones, who died in a train wreck several years earlier. 

It was on the night of Sunday, April 29, 1900 when hot shot engineer John Luther Jones highballed his fast cannonball express out of Memphis.  Simian Taylor Webb was the fireman on board.  The regular engineer was sick and Casey and Sim Webb were substitutes.  They were already eight hours late so you could say they were both in one big hurry.  When engine number 382 came around a bend with Casey at the throttle, the two found themselves looking at the back of a motionless freight car.  As the story goes Casey told Sim Webb to jump, and moments later, with Jones still at the throttle trying to stop the speeding locomotive, his fast cannonball express slammed into the freight car and that was the end of the line for Casey and his train.  Webb lived to tell the tale.

Seibert write four verses using the melody he had picked up from railroad workers.  Newton arranged some words around the melody.  At first they had difficulty getting any publisher to look at the piece, but eventually, it became a super super big seller.  So highballing Casey went highballing off into American legend while his kids "got another papa on the Salt Lake line."  

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