Wabash Cannonball

"Wabash Cannonball"
Sheet music cover
Song
Written	19th century
Genre	American folk music, country, bluegrass

"The Great Rock Island Route", popularized as "Wabash Cannonball" and also known by various other titles, is a 19th-century American folk song that describes the scenic beauty and predicaments of a fictional train, the Wabash Cannonball Express, as it travels on the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad. The song has become a country music and marching band staple. The only train to actually bear the name was created in response to the song's popularity, the Wabash Railroad renaming its daytime express service between Detroit and St. Louis the Wabash Cannon Ball from 1949 until its discontinuation in 1971 during the formation of Amtrak.

The Carter Family made one of the first recordings of the song in 1929, though it was not released until 1932. Another popular version was recorded by Roy Acuff in 1936.^[1] The Acuff version is one of the fewer than 40 all-time singles to have sold 10 million physical copies worldwide.

The tune is most famously associated with Kansas State University athletics and ESPN in 2016 named it the top Big Twelve football pregame ritual. It is also a signature song of the Indiana State University Marching Sycamores and the Purdue All-American Marching Band as the ISU and Purdue campuses are adjacent to the Mighty Wabash River. It is also associated with the Stephen F. Austin State University Lumberjack Marching Band, the Kansas State University Marching Band, the Texas Tech University Goin' Band from Raiderland, and the University of Texas Longhorn Band. It was also used as the theme song by USS Wabash.

The song "The Wabash Cannonball" is part of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll list.^[2] It is the oldest song on the list.