I’ve Been Working on the Railroad is one of my favorite campfire songs, but its origins are unclear. Some suggest ties to the Underground Railroad. Black railroad workers may have started singing it, the initial melody is similar to Von Suppe’s 1846 Poet and Peasant overture. Later, college students added the Dinah section as a chorus, the words from an 1840 English song, the melody from Christy’s Minstrels’ Goodnight, Ladies. The Dinah is a generic reference to a slave woman. (Eyes of Texas uses different words) Get your guitars out and sing around the campfire!
I’ve been working on the railroad
All the live-long day…
Someone’s in the kitchen with Dinah
Someone’s in the kitchen I know…
C. T. Suddeth 
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