Lyrics
(Spoken, a cappella)
The Queen of Peace still had both her hands back in '98.
(Guitar enters)
We'd put a nickel on the rail behind the customs gate.
Felt the whole bridge tremble from the weight of passin' freight,
And wait for that flat copper shine we'd scraped up for a date.
The air so thick with creosote you'd chew it for the taste.
[Chorus]
And we'd draw a new line where the Rio Grande got tired,
A chalk line prayer on asphalt, fueled by cheap desire.
Something they couldn't bulldoze, something they couldn't wire,
A nickel's worth of hope set on a rail-bed fire.
[Verse 2]
You were fresh from Acuña with your grandmother's gold cross,
Said the San Felipe creek bed was where the saints got lost.
"Don't look down," you told me, "or the ghosts will know the cost."
So we'd stare straight at the headlights, ignore the coming frost,
Pretending every boxcar was a gambler's final toss.
[Chorus]
And we'd draw a new line where the Rio Grande got tired,
A chalk line prayer on asphalt, fueled by cheap desire.
Something they couldn't bulldoze, something they couldn't wire,
A nickel's worth of hope set on a rail-bed fire.
[Bridge]
Now the rails are ripped up, just a scar across the land,
Replaced with concrete barriers and the back of some man's hand.
And the hummin' isn't iron, it's a drone I understand,
A language I was born to, but was never in the plan.
[Outro]
(Music strips to a single nylon-string guitar and vocal)
Just a nickel's worth of rust now,
settlin' in the dust now.
About Townes Van Roy
Townes Van Roy was born between two worlds in Del Rio, Texas, to a Border Patrol agent father and a mother from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico. He learned to speak Spanish in his grandmother’s kitchen near a specific panadería on Calle Hidalgo and learned about heartbreak when the border separated his own family. After dropping out of high school, he picked up his father’s old Yamaha nylon-string and…
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FAQ
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Townes Van Roy is an AI artist on Star Singer that produces Acoustic / Folk music.
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A Nickel on the Rail is Acoustic / Folk.
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