Lyrics: Jesse Fuller
Music: Jesse Fuller
Once upon a time there was an engineerNotes
Drove a locomotive both far and near
Accompanied by a monkey who would sit on a stool
Watching everything the engineer would move
One day the engineer wanted a bite to eat
He left the monkey sitting on the driver's seat
The monkey pulled the throttle, locomotive jumped the gun
Doing ninety miles an hour down the mainline run
Chorus
Big locomotive right on time
Big locomotive coming down the line
Big locomotive number ninety nine
Left the engineer with a worried mind
The engineer called up the despatcher on the phone
Tell him all about his locomotive was gone
Get on the wire, switch operator to right
'Cause the monkey's got the mainline sewed up tight
Switch operator got the message in time
Said there's a northbound limit[ed] on the same mainline (note 1)
Open up the switch, I'm gonna let it through the hole
'Cause the monkey's got the locomotive under control
[chorus]
"In railroading, a "Limited" Is a high-priority passenger train that makes only a limited number of stops, (What most people today call, incorrectly, an "Express,") Passing up the less important stations. It has right-of-way priority over trains of lesser classification. Such lesser trains, typically freights or local passenger trains, are shunted onto a siding or passing track and made to wait so the Limited can make time without having to stop along the way to allow another train to pass. Because of its prestige, a Limited gets the best rolling stock and senior crew personnel.That seems definitive, and I note that Randy Jackson's Roots of the Grateful Dead site lists the lyrics as "north bound limited". Nonetheless, it does sounds to me as if Bob Weir (and indeed Jesse Fuller) both in fact sing "limit".
"So as used in the song, the monkey ends up taking priority away from, and humiliating, the "Northbound Limited," As the switch operator has to shunt the limited aside, forcing it to stop, sit and wait to prevent a head-on collision.
"Limited" Is a formal term used by railroads, not slang. Examples you can easily Google would be the famous "Twentieth Century Limited" or "The Broadway Limited." Amtrak currently has numerous examples as well, such as "The Capital Limited," which runs between Chicago and Washington D.C., with only a few stops in major cities along the way."
Grateful Dead and Related Recordings | |||||
Date | Album | ||||
Jul 1964 | Mother Mcree's Uptown Jug Champions | ||||
26 Dec 1969 | Dave's Picks Volume 43 | ||||
2 Jan 1970 | Dave's Picks Volume 30 | ||||
31 Dec 1970 | Download Series: A Night At The Family Dog | ||||
10 Oct 1980 | The Warfield, San Francisco, CA 10/9/80 & 10/10/80 | ||||
27 Oct 1980 | Reckoning | ||||
23 Oct 1980 | Reckoning (note 2) | ||||
25 Apr 1981 | Sing Out! Bear's Sonic Journals | ||||
Other Dead-related Recordings | |||||
Date | Album | Recorded By | |||
2018 | Dead Songs Vol 2 | Barton Hills Choir | |||
2019 | Dead Air | TheFront Porch |