(Steve Goodman)

 

Ridin' on the City of New Orleans

Illinois Central Monday morning rail

Fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders

Three conductors and twenty-five sacks of mail.



All along the southbound odyssey the train pulls out of Kankakee

Rolls along past houses farms and fields

Passin' trains that have no names and switchyards full of old black men

Of graveyards full of the rusted automobiles.



Good mornin' America how are ye

Say don't you know me I'm your native son

I'm the train they call the City of New Orleans

I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.



I see old men playing poker in a club car

Penny a point ain't no one keeping score

They pass that paper bag that holds the bottle

And feel the wheels a rumbling neath the floor.



And the sons of poor men porters and the sons of engineers

Ride their fathers magic carpet made of steel

Mothers with their babes asleep are rocking to that gentle beat

And the rhythm of the rails is all they feel.



Good mornin' America how are ye

Say don't you know me I'm your native son

I'm the train they call the City of New Orleans

I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.



Night time on the City of New Orleans

Changing cars in Memphis Tennessee

Half way home and we'll be there by morning

Through the Mississippi darkness rolling down to the sea.



But all the towns and people seem to fade into a bad dream

And the steel rails still ain't heard the news

The conductor sings his songs again the passengers will please refrain

This train's got the disappearing railroad blues.



Oh, good night America how are ye

Say don't you know me I'm your native son

I'm the train they call the City of New Orleans

I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done...