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 a canned cookie
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 automobiles
Good morning America,
how are you?
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
Dealin' card games with the
old man in the club car
Penny a point,
ain't no one keepin' score
As the paper bag that holds the bottle
Feel the wheels rum
blin 'neath the floor
And the son s of foemen porters
and the son s of engineers
Write their fathers magic
carpets made of steel
And mothers with their babes asleep
rockin' to the gentle beat
And the rhythm of the rails is all they feel
Good morning America, how are you?
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
Nighttime on the city of
New Or leans
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 to disappear
in railroad blue
Good night America, how are ya?
Said don't you know me,
I'm your native son
I'm the train that called the
city of New Orleans
I'll be gone 500 miles when the day
is done