"I've Been Working on the Railroad" is an American folk song. The first published version appeared as "Levee Song" in Carmina Princetonia, a book of Princeton University songs published in 1894. The earliest known recording is by the Sandhills Sixteen, released by Victor Records in 1927.
Music
The melody of the opening line of "I've Been Working on the Railroad" may have been inspired by the very similar melody at the beginning of the cello solo about one minute into Franz von Suppé's 1846 Poet and Peasant overture.
Lyrics
The verses that generally constitute the modern version of the song are: The 1894 version includes one verse very much like the modern song, though in negro minstrel dialect, and with an intro that is no longer sung and a very different second verse: The "Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah" section, with its noticeably different melody, is actually an older song that has been absorbed by "I've Been Working on the Railroad". It was published as "Old Joe, or Somebody in the House with Dinah" in London in the 1830s or '40s with music credited to J.H. Cave. "Dinah" was a generic name for a slave woman and, by extension, any woman of African-American descent. The melody for this section of the song may have been adapted from "Goodnight, Ladies", written in 1847 by E.P. Christy. According to the liner notes to Pete Seeger's Children's Concert at Town Hall, the "Dinah won't you blow" section is a more modern addition, contributed to the song by "some college students". A high school glee club songbook circa 1947 used this introduction: The remainder was the modern version.
Other extant verses and stanzas
One extant verse that has been recorded in prominent sources follows the "Singin' fee, fie, fiddly-i-o" verse: In another version of "I've Been Working on the Railroad" that is printed in "The Family Car Songbook", researched and edited by Tam Mossman, the song continues as follows:
Translations
Japanese An adaptation of this song is a very familiar nursery rhyme in Japan, with the same melody and roughly the same subject matter, but with a different title and different lyrics. It is known as "Senro wa tsuzuku yo doko made mo", meaning "The railroad continues forever". NHK introduced this version of the song in 1967 in a TV program called Minna no Uta. This tune is used at the stations on the Hanshin Electric Railway Lines to announce arriving trains and is similarly used at Okayama Station on the San'yō Line and the Akō Line of West Japan Railway Company. In a 2014 soundtrack album of Ressha Sentai ToQger, the singer Shōgō Kamata recorded a variation of the song with Animetal USA rearranging the song.
"The Eyes of Texas"
"The Eyes of Texas" is the spirit song of the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Texas at El Paso. It is set to the tune of "I've Been Working on the Railroad" with alternate lyrics written in 1904. Students, faculty, staff, and alumni of the University sing the song at Longhorn sports games and other events.
Bing Crosby included the song in a medley on his album 101 Gang Songs.
The song has been used in many Looney Tunes shorts:
*At the start of the Pepé Le Pew short Touché and Go, a street painter sings "I've Been Working on the Railroad" in French with English words mixed in, and Pepé is later heard singing it in English with altered lyrics.
*Elmer Fudd sings it in The Unruly Hare and The Wacky Wabbit.
*In Falling Hare, the gremlin repeatedly strikes the nose of a bomb to the song's tune.
In Thomas and the Magic Railroad, Diesel 10 sings the song while passing through the Smelter's Yard, though he uses the British term "railway". He only sings the beginning of the chorus and then chuckles and says, "Who wants to work a live long day anyway?".
The movie Kelly's Heroes featured tanks playing the song over a loudspeaker after they've finished attacking a railroad depot.
The song is one of the four songs sung by a barbershop quartet every few minutes at the Daybreak Parkway TRAX Station in South Jordan, Utah which opened in 2011 as part of UTA's art in transit program
While exploring Mementos in Persona 5, Ryuji and Morgana randomly sing the first four lines of the song in the English dub as well as the Japanese translation of the song in the Japanese dub.
