CITY OF NEW ORLEANS

Ridin' 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 of Kankakee
And rolls along past houses farms and fields
Passing trains that have no name 

And graveyards full of old black men
And the 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
And I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done

Dealing cards with an old man in the club car
Penny a point, ain't no one keeping score
Pass that paper bag that holds the bottle
And 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 

Rockin' to that 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
And 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 we'll be there by morning
Through the Mississippi darkness rolling down to the sea

And 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 songs again

 The passengers will please refrain
This train has got the disappearing railroad blues
 

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