City Of New Orleans

Riding on the City of New Orleans
 Illinois Central, Monday morning rail
 Got fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders
 Three conductors and twenty five sacks of mail
 We're all out on the southbound odyssey
 As the train pulls out of Kankakee
 And rolls in past the houses, farms and fields
 Passing towns that have no name
 And freight yards full of old black men
 And then graveyards of rusted automobiles
 Singing good morning America, how are you?
 Yeah don't you know me, I'm your native son
 I'm the train they call the City of New Orleans
 And I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done
 Dealing card games with the old men in the club cars
 And this penny a point, there ain't no one keeping score
 Won't you pass the paper bag that holds the bottle?
 You can hear the wheels a-rumbling through the floor
 And the sons of Pullman porters, and the sons of engineers
 Ride their fathers' magic carpet made of steel
 And the mothers with their babes asleep
 There rocking to the gentle beat
 The rhythm of the rails is all they dream
 Singing good morning America, how are you?
 Yeah don't you know me, I'm your native son
 I'm the train they call the City of New Orleans
 And I'll be gone five hundred miles when day is done
 Midnight on the City of New Orleans
 Changing cars in Memphis, Tennessee
 We're halfway home, we'll be there by morning
 Through the Mississippi darkness, rolling to the sea
 In all the towns and people seem to fade into a bad dream
 The old steel rail, it ain't heard the news
 Conductor sings his song again
 The passengers will please refrain
 Well this train's got the disappearin' railroad blues
 Singin' goodnight America, how are you?
 Yeah don't you know me, I'm your native son
 I'm the train they call the City of New Orleans
 And I'll be gone a long, long time when the day is done
 Singin' goodnight America, how are you?
 Yeah don't you know me, I'm your native son
 I'm the train they call the City of New Orleans
 And I'll be gone a long, long time when day is done