This song tells the story of a man travelling the country by train, probably as an itinerant worker. These workers, also known as Hobos, started to become popular after the American Civil War in the 1860s. They would to go from town to town looking for temporary jobs and used railways as their form of transport. Because they were impoverished, they used to board railcars, usually unauthorized – which could cause them to be put off trains, like the man in the song. Jimmie Rodgers, who was known as ‘The Singing Brakeman’, used to work on railways since he was a kid, so he must have known many men like this.. During the great Depression, their numbers increased greatly and they became more and more popular due to the economical crisis and the lack of work. They were scattered across the country but adopted their own sets of ethic rules and communicated trough the use of secret signs alongside the railways.