City of New Orleans

Lyrics:

• Riding on the City Of New Orleans
• Illinois Central, Monday morning rail
• Fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders
• Three Conductors; twenty-five sacks of mail
• All along the southbound odyssey - the train pulls out of Kankakee
• And rolls along past houses, farms, and fields
• Passing trains that have no name, and freight yards full of old black men
• And the graveyards of the rusted automobile


• Good morning, America, how are you?
• 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


• Dealing card games with the old man in the Club Car
• Penny a point - ain't no one keeping score
• Pass the paper bag that holds the bottle
• Feel the wheels rumbling 'neath the floor
• And the sons of Pullman Porters, and the sons of Engineers
• Ride their father's magic carpets made of steel
• And, mothers with their babes asleep rocking to the gentle beat
• And the rhythm of the rails is all they feel


• Good morning, America, how are you?
• 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
• Halfway home - 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 rail still ain't heard the news
• The conductor sings his songs again - the passengers will please refrain
• This train got the disappearing railroad blues


• Good night, America, how are ya?
• Said, 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