30,000 Pounds of Bananas

Incident

On March 18, 1965, 33-year-old truck driver Eugene P. Sesky was on his way to deliver a load of bananas to Scranton, Pennsylvania. He was returning from the boat piers at Newark, New Jersey where he had picked up his load, which was destined for the A&P produce warehouse in South Side. He was driving a 1950s Brockway diesel truck tractor with a 35 ft trailer and was headed down Rt. 307 when he lost control. That section of Rt. 307 contains a two-mile descent extending from Lake Scranton to the bottom of Moosic Street that includes a drop in elevation of more than 500 ft in less than 1.5 mi. Sesky was unable to control the truck's speed down the hill due to a mechanical failure, variously attributed to the truck's brake system on Moosic Street that could have exploded in flames, causing a greater loss of life. Sesky was thrown from the truck and killed, and bananas were spilled and strewn when the rig came to rest; 15 others were injured but only Sesky died. The road was closed for cleanup as Johnson's Towing Company helped out in the recovery. Trucks under 21,000 pounds were required to go down the hill in first gear. Trucks over 21,000 pounds are no longer allowed to travel that route and must use Interstate 380 via Dunmore.

Song

The song portrays a fictional account of the incident played in the form of a country song. With each verse, the song gets faster to, as Chapin explained in the live recording, "build up intensity and excitement." During the chorus, Chapin sings the phrase "thirty-thousand pounds" followed by Big John Wallace singing the bass line "of bananas." During concerts, the audience was encouraged to shout this refrain.

Content

A young truck driver is driving at night to deliver a load of bananas to Scranton, the population of which consumes about 30,000 lb of bananas daily. While approaching Scranton, he fails to notice a sign warning that those who do not shift into low gear will pay a traffic ticket because he is too busy thinking about seeing his wife after his trip. He begins to travel down the steep road to the bottom of the hill. Suddenly, the truck begins to go faster down the hill, and the driver tries to apply the brakes, only to discover that they are not working. The load of bananas pushes against the truck, causing it to pick up speed. Cruising into Scranton, he almost strikes a passing bus. The driver then prays to God to make the event all a dream before he damages a number of cars and other obstacles, besides injuring a few people, before he is decapitated in a crash, and 400 yd of the hill is smeared with his load of bananas.

The song's epilogue tells the story how Chapin first heard of the event aboard a Greyhound bus coming out of Scranton some months later. An old man sitting next to Chapin implores him to imagine "30,000 pounds of mashed bananas."

Many details in the song correspond closely to the actual incident, but others are invented or fictionalized. In particular, Sesky was not actually decapitated in the accident.

Alternate endings

In the live performance from the album Greatest Stories Live, Chapin sings two alternate endings to the song he originally had in mind, explaining to the audience that the rest of the band was less than enthusiastic about them, with his brothers Tom and Steve each offering the summary dismissal, "Harry, it sucks!" The first alternate ending uses the 1923 novelty song "Yes! We Have No Bananas" as the punchline of the song, with the last line changed to "Bananas in Scranton, PA".

The second ending is described by Chapin as a "country-western" ending about "motherhood", given that the song features a truck It deals with a young mother crying while watching her child sleeping. The woman is presumably the truck driver's widow and, because of her sorrow over the accident, she no longer eats bananas. During concerts, Chapin divided the audience during this ending, usually turning it into a contest between men and women with regard to singing skill. The second alternate ending has everyone sing "of Bananas!" in harmony, swelling to a climax and cutting off.

A third alternate ending surfaced later, which Chapin would often introduce with a monologue about Donny and Marie Osmond, and the technical definition of the word "sucks". The third alternate ending is a parody of a Chiquita banana commercial, done in "Jimmy Buffett style," with the participation of the whole band. The ending is cut short by Big John singing the first verse of "Taxi" in the form of an upbeat disco style that concludes with Chapin telling him "it sucks."

The Bottom Line CD features the four endings along with "Final Concert." Other recorded examples of the song with all four endings include performances at Knoxville Memorial Stadium on March 7, 1979; the Coffee Break Concert broadcast on WMMS Cleveland on December 5, 1979; and the Boston University concert on April 1, 1981.

"Harry, it sucks" became a popular catchphrase among Chapin's fans, to the point where T-shirts sporting the phrase would be offered at his concerts.

References

References

1. Lynott, Jerry. (2001-07-08). "It wasn't just about 30,000 pounds of bananas: Real accident 36 years ago in Scranton took the life of a truck driver, injured several other people and became the basis for a popular song". Times Leader.
2. (2006-07-17). "Whizzo World Blog: Harry Chapin's 30,000 Pounds of Bananas". Whizzo.blogspot.com.
3. Buynovsky, Sarah. (March 18, 2015). "The 'Banana Truck' Crash: 50 Years Later". wnep.com.
4. Carden, Terry. (1965-03-19). "1 Killed and 15 Injured in Runaway Accident". The Scranton Times.
5. (2007-07-24). "Grit in the Gears: Fruit". Gritinthegears.blogspot.com.