[Verse 1]
And if they stared down straight at 12:49,
They could see the special comin’ ‘cos it’s just down the line.
And old Casey keeps on stokin’ trying to keep it on time,
As it rattles and it creeks along the Memphis mainline.

[Verse 2]
Speedin’ eighty miles an hour through the fog and the spray,
To Grenada, Mississippi with a stop on the way.
Left the station with an hour and thirty minute delay,
For a record setting run could not keep Casey away.

[Chorus 1]
And the old girl's got her dancing slippers on tonight,
Oh she’s eatin’ up the tracks like she’s never seen a brake in her life.
With a full head of steam she’s just lookin’ not to be outdone,
With only six cars to haul on the cannonball passenger run.
Ooh.

[Verse 3]
With the whistle of a Viking and that clickety-clack,
That ten-wheeler locomotive no it didn’t hold back.
And with steam and pure adrenaline it chased down the track,
The driver at the johnson bar from Canton n’ back.

[Verse 4]
Well down in Vaughan in Yazoo County stopped a saw-by’d freight,
In a hole along the track the train’s caboose lay in wait.
It was Jones’ last ride on the rails to his fate,
And they found him still clutching that old whistle and brake.

[Chorus 1]
And the old girl's got her dancing slippers on tonight,
Oh she’s eatin’ up the tracks like she’s never seen a brake in her life.
With a full head of steam she’s just lookin’ not to be outdone,
With only six cars to haul on the cannonball passenger run.

[Verse 5]
On a cold blind bend with too many unknowns,
The tin fields of Mississippi heard the harrowing tones.
And from engineer to hero whilst he shattered his bones,
There reversing on the throttle was that John Luther Jones.

[Chorus 2]
And the old girl's got her dancing slippers on tonight,
Oh she’s eatin’ up the tracks like she’s never seen a brake in her life.
On that ill-fated night poor ole Casey was to be undone,
With only twelve miles to go on the cannonball passenger run.
There rides the story of the legend of the cannonball passenger run.
Ooh.