Union Pacific train, downtown St. Louis

Tom Waits has several songs with down-and-out lyrics about Missouri. Something really bad must have happened to him in the Show Me State.

"In Moberly, Missouri at the
Iroquois Hotel
She checked in with the President
And she ran up quite a bill." -
-Black Market Baby
(This song also has the amazing phrase "She's a Bonzai Aphrodite.")

" She wrote good bye in
The dust on the hood
THey found a a map of Missouri
Lipstick on the glass
They must of left
In the middle of the night

And I want to know
The same thing
Everyone wants to know
How it going to end?"
--How's It Gonna End?

"My daddy told me, lookin back,
The best friend you'll have is a railroad track
So when I was thirteen said, I'm rollin' my own
And I'm leavin' Missouri and I'm never comin' home."
--Bottom of the World

But the most appropriate one for this photo is "Train Song."

"Well I broke down in E. St. Louis
On the Kansas City line
and I drunk up all my money
that I borrowed every time
and I fell down at the derby
and now the night's black as a crow.
It was a train that took me away from here
but a train can't bring me home.
What made my dreams so hollow?
I was standing at the depot
with a steeple full of swallows
that could never ring the bell
and I come ten thousand miles away
with not one thing to show.
Well it was a train that took me away from here
but a train can't bring me home.
I remember when I left
without bothering to pack.
You know I up and left with
just the clothes I had on my back.
Now I'm sorry for what I've done
and I'm out here on my own.
Well it was a train that took me away from
here but a train can't bring me home."
--Train Song.

He's a true poet.