Music by Elton John Lyrics by Bernie Taupin Never released I've served upon this railroad for longer than I know My father and his father did the same thing long ago To keep the Western Union rolling down towards the sea The benefits of this great line built for you and me So Rolling Western Union, you can roll on to the sea Ten thousand miles of beatin' steel has made a man out of me In every state I've driven home a rivet with my hands Oh it's Rolling Western Union rolling onward, onward through our land It's friends of mine who died upon the building of this line Irishmen and Chinamen and some from the British Isles I've even seen the convicts come to work here for a while Before the law caught up with them and sent them back to trial I had a wife while on the job a hundred miles on back She died in Oklahoma and I laid her by the track All that's left is a wooden cross upright on a mound