City Of New Orleans

(album: Wildflower Festival - 2003)

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

On the southbound odyssey
The train goes out at Kankakee
Rolls along past houses, farms and fields
Passing trains that have no name
Freight yards full of old black men
And the graveyard of the rusted automobiles

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

Playing cards with the old men in the club car
A penny a point ain't no one keeping score
Pass the paper bag that holds the bottle
And feel the wheels rumbling beneath the floor

And the sons of pullman porters
And the sons of engineers
Ride their father's magic carpet made of steam
Mothers with their babes asleep
Rocking to the gentle beat
The rhythm of the rails is all they dream

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

Nighttime on The City of New Orleans
Changing cars in Memphis, Tennessee
Half way home, and we'll be there by morning
Through the Mississippi darkness
Rolling down to the sea

And all the towns and people seem
To change into a bad dream
The steel rails still ain't heard the news
The conductor sings his songs again
Passengers will please refrain
This train's got to disappear in 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

I'll be gone a million miles when the race is run

I'll be goooone