City of New Orleans

Riding on the City of New Orleans

Dealing card games with the old men in the club car

Night time on the City of New Orleans

Illinois Central Monday morning rail Fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders

Penny a point, ain't no one keeping score Pass the paper bag that holds the bottle

Changing cars in Memphis Tennessee Half way home, we'll be there by morning

Three conductors and twenty-five sacks of mail.

Feel the wheels rumbling 'neath the floor

through the Mississippi darkness rolling down to the sea.

All a-long the south bound odyssey, the train pulls out of Kankakee

And the sons of Pullman porters and the sons of engineers

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

And rolls along past houses farms and fields

Ride their father's magic carpets made of steel

And the steel rail still ain't heard the news

Passing trains that have no name, freight yards full of old black men

Mothers with their babes asleep, are rocking to the gentle beat

The conductor sings his songs again, passengers will please refrain

And the graveyards of the rusted auto-mo-biles.

And the rhythm of the rails is all they feel.

This train got the disappearing railroad blues.

Chorus:

Good morning A-merica, how are you? (After Verses 1 & 2)

night (After Verse 3)

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.

 

* The songwriter royalties from this allowed Steve Goodman to further pursue his career in music.