Guitar: The Fireman's Song (Including lyrics and chords)

This is a song written by Don Bilston and performed by the Ian Campbell Folk Group. It refers to a time when the railways relied on steam engines and the footplate crew consisted of the driver and his mate whose job was to keep the fire burning by feeding it coal, thus maintaining steam pressure. As the song indicates, without the fireman, the train would not go.
Having just finished the annotations, I realise that I missed out the next to the end verse which should have gone:

One day a driver I will be,
Of the pick and shovel I'll be free,
Until that day I'll shift the coal,
Raising stream so the train can roll.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• The
• Fireman's
• Song
• threelegsoman
• Don
• Bilston
• Ian
• Campbell
• Folk
• Group
• Lyrics
• Chords
• 12-string
• Acoustic
• Guitar
• Strumming

[mutinynell]

you have to be a manxman with a name like that!

[threelegsoman]

@mutinynell Correct!  :-))

[jjjrrrfff]

Thanks so much for putting this up. I volunteer as a brakeman on an excursion railroad here in Texas and I want to start doing a short set of railroad songs for the passengers. I have a tape of a very old recording of this song but since I don't have a tape player at present, I've been hunting for this song to remind me of the words. Thanks to you, I don't even have to figure out the chord progression!

[threelegsoman]

@jjjrrrfff Happy to have been of help. As I said to another enthusiast, you might like some of my videos to do with trains here in the Isle of Man. Just enter 'trains threelegsoman' and you should find them.

[softwizz]

Great to hear you sing this, mate! The last time I heard it, I was accompanying Don Bilston himself, at a booking at the Saltley Action Centre back in the early 1970s. I had his LP of course, and I had contacts at the Action Centre who asked me if I could approach Don to do a gig there. He was happy to do so, but only if I provided his accompaniment. I have a recording of it, somewhere...

[threelegsoman]

@softwizz Very interesting information. Lucky you. I see you are a train enthusiast. Perhaps you might find a couple of my other videos of interest. If you put 'train threelegsoman' into your search box you will see what I mean.

[Gelsenbury]

I heard Phil Beer play this song and definitely want to play it too! Thank you for providing video, lyrics and chords. Great performance!

[grimsmith1]

Brilliant! I found Don Bilston's LP back in the 70's, in Saudi Arabia of all places! In a little back street record shop, how the hell did it get there? No matter, since I had worked on the railway, not actually as a navvy, but swinging a pick and shovel I was right into this, and I found the songs so touching and remeniscent of older times. The LP is still in my loft somewhere, must dig it out and find some means of playing it! Thank you for this upload.

[civilwarhat]

Awesome!

[SuperZielke]

let us hope that it will be possible for you to upload songs for a very long time.

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