From Swallows’ In the Shadow of the Seven Stars
Gravediggers
About Gravediggers
DATE: Tuesday, June 30, 1891
LOCATION: Manitou and Pikes Peak Railway, Colorado Springs, Colorado
SCENE: When the witness reaches Colorado Springs, he finds that the saddler William Green has passed through town on his way to find work in San Francisco. Drawn to the glorious heights of the Rocky Mountains, the witness travels by rail to the summit of Pike’s Peak where he has a vision of his own death and burial. As he looks through the window from the heights of the peak, he sees his body being transported to its final resting place at the Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey, England, aboard a funeral train that escorts the dead from overcrowded London to a large graveyard outside of the city.
On his way down from the mountain’s summit, the witness resigns himself to following Green’s trail to San Francisco, now desperate to reunite with Frances and do what he must to regain his human soul.
RELATED RESEARCH: The Colorado Connection
High, low, everywhere that I go
Run but I can’t slow it down
Feel it all around
Both near and in the distance
Heartbeat pulsing through the ground
Feel it all around
Outflanking my resistance
Run but I can’t slow it down
Tick-tock can’t escape the big clock
Air is filled with the sound
Hear it all around
The clicking and clacking
Groans of coils tightly wound
Hear it all around
The ringing and clanging
Air is filled with the sound
I feel the engine slowing
As we pull into the station
Come to bury my body
Shovel my soul down to hell
Clip-clop no one let a word drop
Laying my body in the ground
Feel them all around
Shoveling in silence
No one dares to make a sound
Feel them all around
Covering the violence
No one dares to make a sound
I feel the engine slowing
As we pull into the station
Come to bury my body
Shovel my soul down to hell
I hear the chorus growing
Can you hear them all rejoicing?
They’re calling me to join them
To add my voice to the sound
© 2014 Crandall
Performers:
Aaron Kerr – Bass
Brett Hansen – Electric Guitars, Whistle
Jeff Crandall – Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Organs
Justin DeLeon – Drums
Randy Gildersleeve – Mandolin
Ben Valine – Banjo