Come gather round friends from all ends of the earth I'll give you the dirt for what it's worth They said it wouldn't work, they said it wouldn't work But this is the ballad of railroad jerk, this is the ballad of railroad jerk There was a lot of fast talk on the slow track, man And when my baby took off she never did come back We got a ten million dollar record contract I swear I nearly had a heart attack Well the wind was blowing from the north to the south And we caught 'em talking out of both sides of their mouth From the corporates head down to the mrs uptown I tried to get all the big shots to calm down You know genius only comes to a chosen few and we are no exception Raised on television Goodbye Monday, hello Tuesday They said it wouldn't work, they said it wouldn't work But this is the ballad of railroad jerk, this is the ballad of railroad jerk Well, hellfire and brimstone, my mind is on the grindstone I got myself ready for the shit to hit the wall And the tenth annual top ten video masquerade ball I put on my slouch hat, my boots, and my sack dress And some rougue and some lipstick and some polish for practice I pushed my old handtruck down the old dirt road I may have been complete, but I was not sold They said 'play Glamorous Bitch one more time' My friends all have credit cards, but I have been denied Then I heard them singing beneath the pale sky They said 'I'm so lonesome, I could cry' You can't scare me, I'm half crazy They said it wouldn't work, they said it wouldn't work But this is the ballad of railroad jerk, this is the ballad of railroad jerk When the loser went AWOL we took him off the payroll We lowered him down to the tune of a drumroll We wiped away the slate, we took away the plate We thought we were solid up on top of the hill But we found out it was really only landfill So when the bars all close and the subways are cracking And the party that you went to just wasn't really happening When the lights are dim and the shades are drawn And the national anthem on TV just went on And you find that the blind are just killing the blind And you don't wanna be one of those kind Well, don't despair because they said it wouldn't work With that look on their face and that smirk (smirk) Yeah, that's what they told us, but I knew it would work And you can find my name on the tail of my shirt They said it wouldn't work, they said it wouldn't work But this is the ballad of railroad jerk, this is the ballad of railroad jerk