Lyrics 30, 000 Pounds of Bananas - Harry Chapin

30, 000 Pounds of Bananas

It was just after dark when the truck started down
The hill that leads into Scranton Pennsylvania
Carrying thirty thousand pounds of bananas
Carrying thirty thousand pounds
Hit it big John
Of bananas
He was a young driver
Just out on his second job
And he was carrying the next day’s pasty fruits
For everyone in that coal scarred city
Where children play without despair
In backyard slag piles and folks manage to eat each day
About thirty thousand pounds of bananas
Yes, just about thirty thousand pounds
Scream it again, John
Of bananas
He passed a sign that he should have seen
Saying «Shift to low gear, a fifty dollar fine my friend.»
He was thinking perhaps about the warm breathed woman
Who was waiting at the journey’s end
He started down the two mile drop
The curving road that wound from the top of the hill
He was pushing on through the shortening miles
That ran down to the depot
Just a few more miles to go
Then he’d go home and have her ease his long, cramped day away
And the smell of thirty thousand pounds of bananas
Yes the smell of thirty thousand pounds of bananas
He was picking speed as the city spread its twinkling lights, below him
But he paid no heed as the shivering thoughts of the night’s
Delights went through him
His foot nudged the brakes to slow him down
But the pedal floored easy without a sound
He said, «Christ»
It was funny how he had named the only man
Who could save him now
He was trapped inside a dead-end hellslide
Riding on his fear hunched back
Was everyone of those yellow green
I’m telling you thirty thousand pounds of bananas
Yes, there were thirty thousand pounds of bananas
He barely made the sweeping curve
That led into the steepest grade
And he missed the thankful passing bus
At ninety miles an hour
And he said, «God, make it a dream»
As he rode his last tread down
He said, «God, make it a dream»
As he rode his last tread down
And he sideswiped nineteen neat parked cars
Clipped off thirteen telephone poles
Hit two houses, bruised eight trees
And Blue Crossed seven people
It was then he lost his head
Not to mention an arm or two before he stopped
And he slid for four hundred yards
Along the hill that leads into Scranton Pennsylvania
All those thirty thousand pounds of bananas
You know the man who told me about it on the bus
As it went up the hill out of Scranton, Pennsylvania
He shrugged his shoulders, he shook his head
And he said
And this is exactly what he said
«Boy that sure must’ve been something
Just imagine thirty thousand pounds of bananas»
Yes, there were thirty thousand pounds of mashed bananas
Of bananas, bananas, just bananas, thirty thousand pounds
Of bananas, not no driver now, just bananas