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 south bound odyssey, the train pulls out of Kenkakee

Rolls along past houses farms and fields

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

And graveyards of rusted automobiles.

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 men in the club car

Penny a point ain't noone keeping score

Pass the paper bag but hold 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

Mother with her 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.

Nightime 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.

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

And the steel rail still ain't heard the news

The conductor sings his songs again, the passagers will please refrain

This train got the disappearing railroad blues.

Good night 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.