These conversations seem to follow a familiar pattern. Jenny looks up from her tea in order to inform me that someone on the internet needs to know what the tune is for Casey Jones the Union Scab and whether we could help?
Happy to oblige!
I’ve spent a good deal of time over the last 30 years arond campfires singing that “I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night”. What makes “Casey Jones” to special is that the lyrics were written by Joe Hill himself, parodying “The Ballad of Casey Jones” and reimagining Casey as suffering his misfortune due to his strike breaking.
Arguably the song is not a critique of Casey Jones himself. Even in 1912, only twelve years after his death, other railway engineers were often refered as a “Casey Jones”. The real Casey Jones was in fact a member of two unions and his widow received life insurance payouts from both!
