City of New Orleans

Riding on the City of New Orleans Illinois Central

Monday morning rail

Fisteen cars and fifteen restless riders

Three conductors and twenty-five sacks of mail.

All along the southbound odyssey

The train pulls out of Kankakee

And moves along past houses farms and fields

Passing trains that have no name

And freighyards full of old black men

And the graveyards full of rusted automobiles.

Good morning America how are ya

Say, don't you know me, I'm your native son

I'm a train they call the City of New Orleans

I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.

Dealing card games with an old man on the club car

Many a point and no one keeping score

Pass that paper bag that holds the bottle

Feel the wheels a rumbling neath the floor.

And the sons of poor men porters and the sons of engineers

Ride their father's magic carpet made of steel

Mothers with their babes asleep rocking to that gentle beat

And the rhythm of the rails is all they feel.

Good morning America how are ya

Say, don't you know me, I'm your native son

I'm a 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

Half way home and we'll get 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 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 morning America how are ya

Say, don't you know me, I'm your native son

I'm a train they call the City of New Orleans

I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done...