Lesson 2: Exploring “Freight Train”

Aim How can we learn about melody and folk instruments through Elizabeth Cotten’s “Freight Train?”

Summary: Students explore melody and banjo through the folk song “Freight Train.”

Materials: Musical Explorers CD or online audio

Standards: GA: ESGMK-2.PR.1, ESGMK-2.RE.1, ESGMK-2.RE.2, ESGMK-2.CN.1, ESGMK-2.CN.2, ESGMK-2.RE.3
SC: GM.PR.NL-AH.3, GM.RE.NL-AH.6, GM.RE.NL-AH.7, GM.CN.NL-AH.8, GM.CN.NL-AH.9

Vocabulary: banjo, melody

Learn the Melody of “Freight Train”

- Listen to Kaia sing “Freight Train,” Track 4.
- Learn the first verse of the song.
- Each verse of the song has the same melody. A melody is the tune of the song, the part that you can hum along to.

Freight Train

Freight train, freight train, run so fast
Freight train, freight train, run so fast
Please don’t tell what train I’m on
They won’t know where I’m goin’

When I’m dead and in my grave
No more good times here I crave
Place some stones at my head and feet
And tell them all I’ve gone to sleep

When I die, Lord bury me deep
Down at the end of old Chestnut Street
Place some stones at my head and feet
And tell them I’ve gone to sleep

When I die, Lord bury me deep
Down at the end of old Chestnut Street
So I can hear that old Number Nine
As she goes rolling by

Freight train, freight train, run so fast
Freight train, freight train, run so fast
Please don’t tell what train I’m on
They won’t know where I’m goin’

Review Steady Beat

Using SG11, tap the steady beat while listening to Kaia sing the lyrics.
- Remember the steady beat in music is like a heartbeat.

Learn About Elizabeth Cotten

Share a brief biography of Elizabeth Cotten with your students.

Elizabeth Cotten was born in 1895 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. As a child, she would borrow her brother’s banjo and guitar while he was working. Most stringed instruments (such as guitars) are made for people who are right-handed—the left hand is used to change the pitch of the strings, while the right hand strums or picks. However, since Elizabeth Cotten was left-handed, she taught herself how to play both the banjo and guitar upside down, with the higher strings on top and the lower strings on the bottom. (See below for a link to a video of her playing.) She dropped out of school at age 9 to work in the household of a white family. Eventually she saved enough money to buy her first guitar for $3.75. When she was a girl, she and her brother would chop wood and play by the railroad tracks near their home. She and her brother would sing made-up songs while working and playing. She wrote “Freight Train” when she was 12 years old, inspired by the trains on the tracks. She recorded the song when she was much older (age 62), when her own children had grown up. She started performing all over the country at folk music festivals, and won a Grammy Award in 1985 at the age of 90.

Using the resources available at Smithsonian Folkways, show your students a video of Elizabeth Cotten singing “Freight Train.” Notice how she picks the higher strings with her thumb.
- How does Kaia’s version of “Freight Train” sound the same as Elizabeth Cotten’s? How does it sound different?

Explore the Banjo in Folk Music

While different regions in the United States have their own folk music traditions, Kaia sings a style of folk music that comes from the region known as Appalachia. Review the geography of Appalachia on SG7.
This cultural region includes both North Carolina, where Elizabeth Cotten is from, and West Virginia, where Kaia went to college and studied folk songs.
Elizabeth Cotten played guitar. Another instrument used in folk music is the banjo. The banjo is a 5-stringed instrument that is played by plucking the strings. Listen to Kaia play the banjo, Track 5.
Using SG12, each student can color/design his or her own banjo. Folk musician Pete Seeger even decorated his banjo with the words, “This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender.”

Pete Seeger’s banjo

Trains figure prominently in American music of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Trains were an exciting part of life in many towns—before most people had cars, they could ride a train to different cities and different states. Trains coming into town brought new and different people, sometimes from far away. See if you can spot trains in other Musical Explorers units this semester! Read more about trains with these children’s books: