"The City of New Orleans"

[question everything]

Only this line of a song is playing in my head driving me crazy. I think that the next sentence has Memphis, Tennessee.

Which song is it?

(Older song, 70s or 80s?)

[Richardo]

1. Amazingly enough: "City of New Orleans"

About a passenger train called the "City of New Orleans" which ran on the old Illinois Central railroad between Chicago and New Orleans.

Arlo Guthrie has the most famous cover.

The lyric you're thinking of is something like:

"Nighttime on the City of New Orleans...
Changin' cars in Memphis, Tennessee..."

[RebelOne]

2. I think Arlo Gunthrie sang it.

[silverweb]

3. "Ramblin' Man"

Artist: The Allman Brothers Lyrics
Song: Ramblin' Man Lyrics

(Refrain)
Lord, I was born a ramblin' man
Trying to make a living and doing the best I can
When it's time for leaving, I hope you'll understand
That I was born a rambling man

My father was a gambler down in Georgia
He wound up on the wrong end of a gun
And I was born in the back seat of a Greyhound bus
Rolling down highway forty-one

(Refrain)

I'm on my way to New Orleans this morning
Leaving out of Nashville, Tennessee
They're always having a good time down on the Bayou, Lord
Them delta women think the world of me

(Refrain)


On edit: Then again, I could be wrong.... :D

[maveric]

4. City of New Orleans by Steve Goodman. made famous by Arlo Guthrie

Riding 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 at Kankakee
Rolls along past houses, farms and fields.
Passin' trains that have no names,
Freight yards full of old black men
And the graveyards of the rusted automobiles.

CHORUS:
Good morning America how are you?
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.

Dealin' card games with the old men in the club car.
Penny a point ain't no one keepin' score.
Pass the paper bag that holds the bottle
Feel the wheels rumblin' 'neath the floor.
And the sons of pullman porters
And the sons of engineers
Ride their father's magic carpets made of steel.
Mothers with their babes asleep,
Are rockin' to the gentle beat
And the rhythm of the rails is all they feel.

CHORUS

Nighttime on The City of New Orleans,
Changing cars in Memphis, Tennessee.
Half way home, we'll be there by morning
Through the Mississippi darkness
Rolling down to the sea.
And 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 song again,
The passengers will please refrain
This train's got the disappearing railroad blues.

Good night, America, how are you?
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.

[question everything]

5. Yes! Thank you. Now I can hum the whole song (nt)

[SheilaT]

6. About twenty years ago

I road that train, The City of New Orleans from Chicago to McComb, Mississippi. The entire trip that song played in my head.

I love it that they used to name train routes, and it's so sad that so many have been lost. The Empire Builder. The Coast Starlight. I wish we still had train service worth taking across this country.

Three years ago I took the train from Kansas City to St. Louis. It's supposed to be a five hour ride -- you can drive faster, but I wanted to try it, and my husband would be driving a couple of days later to St. Louis and we'd drive home together. It took ten hours. Apparently on that run freight has priority over passengers, and we kept on being sidelined for freight trains to pass. It became an excruciating ordeal, and instead of arriving in St. Louis about 7 or 8pm, it was after 1am when I finally arrived. Needless to say, I haven't gotten on a train since.

The really sad thing about that is that I love trains and have taken them in the past, both here and in other countries, whenever I can. I'd even started that journey perusing an Amtrak schedule and thinking maybe I'd take more trains around the country. Well, if a five hour train ride normally takes ten hours, it would be impossible to make any connections, so a one day trip would become at minimum a two day trip. What a shame.

[peacefreak]

7. There was also this one.

Battle of New Orleans

In 1814 we took a little trip
Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip
We took a little bacon and we took a little beans
And we caught the bloody British in the town of New Orleans

We fired our guns and the British kept a'comin'
There wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago
We fired once more and they began to runnin'
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico

We looked down the river and we seed the British come
And there must have been a hundred of 'em beatin' on the drum
They stepped so high and they made their bugles ring
We stood behind our cotton bales and didn't say a thing

We fired our guns and the British kept a'comin'
There wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago
We fired once more and they began to runnin'
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico

Old Hickory said we could take 'em by surprise
If we didn't fire our muskets till we looked 'em in the eyes
We held our fire till we seed their faces well
Then we opened up our squirrel guns and gave 'em ..Well....we...

fired our guns and the British kept a'comin'
There wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago
We fired once more and they began to runnin'
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico

Yeah they ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles
And they ran through the bushes where a rabbit couldn't go
They ran so fast that the hounds couldn't catch 'em
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico

We fired our cannon till the barrel melted down
So we grabbed an alligator and we fought another round
We filled his head with cannonballs 'n' powdered his behind
And when we touched the powder off, the 'gator lost his mind

We fired our guns and the British kept a'comin'
There wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago
We fired once more and they began to runnin'
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico

Yeah they ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles
And they ran through the bushes where a rabbit couldn't go
They ran so fast that the hounds couldn't catch 'em
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.