A long time ago come a man on a track
Walking fifty miles with a sack on his back
And he put down his load where he thought it was the best
He made a home in the Mon Valley

He built a townhouse and he got married
Had kids of his own and sent them off to school
And all the travelers came riding down the track
They never went further, they never went back

Then came the churches, then came the schools
Then came the lawyers, then came the rules
Then came the trains and the trucks with their loads
And that dirty old track was the Old River Road

Then came the mines, then came the ore
Then there were some hard times, then there was a war
Old River sang a song about the world outside
And the Old River Road got so deep and so wide
Like a raging rapid

And my radio says tonight it's gonna freeze
People driving home from the factories
You've got ten lanes of traffic
Five lanes moving slow

I used to love to go to work, but they shut it all down
I got a right to go to work, but no work here to be found
Yes, and they say, "We gonna have to pay what we owe.
We gonna have to reap from the seed that's been sown!"
And all the birds upon the wires and up on the poles
They can easily flee from all this rain and this cold
You can hear them singing out their Old River Code
All the way down the Old River Road

Missa, I'd sooner forget, but I remembers those nights
When life was just a friendship underneath the lights
I fell asleep right on your lap, and had one arm around your back
Now it's getting a little colder, so I'll cut you some slack
Oh, just believe in me, Missa, and I'll take you away
I'll get you out of this blackout and into the sun
From these rivers of headlights, from this torrential rain
From the anger that lies on the streets with these names
Cause I've run every red light down Memory Lane
I've seen desperation implode into flames
And I'll just never see it again...

From all these signs just saying sorry but we're closed
All the way down the Old River Road