Steve Goodman

Riding on the City of New Orleans, Illinois Central Monday Morning Rail
Got fifteen cars, fifteen restless riders
Three conductors, twenty five sacks of mail
Well all out on southbound odyssey as the train pulls out of Kankakee
Rolling past the houses, farms and fields
Passing towns that have no name and freightyards full of old black men
And graveyards of rusted automobiles

(*)
Singing, Good Morning America, how are you ?
Yeah don't you know me, I'm your native son
I'm the train they call the City of New Orleans
And I'll be gone 500 miles when day is done

Dealing cards with the old men in the club car
And it's a penny a point there ain't no-one's keeping score
Oh won't you pass the paper bag that holds the bottle
You can hear the wheels a-rumblin through the flow
And the sons of Pullman porters and the song of engineers
Ride their father's magic carpet made of steam
And the mothers with their babes asleep, go rockin'to the gentle beat
The rhythm of the rails is all they dream

(*)
Midnight on the City of New Orleans
Changing cars in Memphis, Tennessee
We're halfway home We'll be there by morning
Through the Mississippi darkness rolling to the sea
And then all the towns and people seem to fade into a bad dream
Old steel rail it ain't heard the news
Conductor sings his song again, the passengers will please refrain
Well this train's got the disappearing railroad blues

(**)
Singing, goodnight America, how are you ?
Hey don't you know me, I'm your native son
I'm the train they call the City of New Orleans
And I'll be gone a long long time when day is done

(**)