The City of New Orleans (song)

[NMMNG]

This suddenly popped into my head out of the blue:

The City of New Orleans
by Steve Goodman



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.

[enigmatic]

1. Steve Goodman was one of the good ones

very underrated songwriter..

[Heidi]

2. That's one of my favorites, Buffy . . . Here's another:

Dixie Flyier
by Randy Newman

I was born right here, november ’43
My dad was a captain in the army
Fighting the germans in sicily.
My poor little momma
Didn’t know a soul in l.a.
So we went down to the union station and made our getaway.
Got on the dixie flyer bound for new orleans
Across the state of texas to the land of dreams.
On the dixie flyer bound for new orleans
Back to her friends and her family in the land of dreams.
Her own mother came to meet us at the station,
Her dress as black as a crow in a coal mine
She cried when her little girl got off the train.
Her brothers and her sisters drove down from jackson, mississippi
In a great green hudson driven by a gentile they knew.
Drinkin’ rye whiskey from a flask in the back seat
Tryin’ to do like the gentiles do
Christ, they wanted to be gentiles, too.
Who wouldn’t down there, wouldn’t you?
An american christian, God damn!
On the dixie flyer bound for new orleans
Back to her friends and her family in the land of dreams
On the dixie flyer bound for new orleans
Across the state of texas to the land of dreams
Across the state of texas to the land of dreams.

[NMMNG]

3. Interesting

The people in this song went from TX to NO, now the people of NO are going to TX (if only temporarily). :cry:

[Heidi]

4. Randy Newman's a genius, in my opinion,

and extremely under-rated. People only remember him for "Short People," but he has a beautiful body of work.