Video hit Arlo Guthrie

Arlo Guthrie - City of New Orleans

Steve Goodman wrote this in 1970. He wrote the lyrics on a sketch pad after his wife fell asleep on the Illinois Central train, where they were going to visit his wife's grandmother. Goodman wrote about what he saw looking out the windows of the train and playing cards in the club car. Everything in the song actually happened on the ride. After he returned home he heard the train was scheduled to be decommissioned do to lack of passengers. He was encouraged to use this song to save the train. He retouched the lyrics and released it on his first album in 1971.

Guthrie's cover in 1972 popularized the song and brought attention to rail lines that were vanishing across middle America. Many people who lived in rural areas relied on them to travel.

Goodman died September 20, 1984 at the age of 36 after a long battle with leukemia. Shortly after his death this won a Grammy in the category of best Country song, which Nelson had recorded and made a #1 Country smash the previous year.

Arlo Davy Guthrie (born July 10, 1947) is an American folk singer. Like his late father, Woody Guthrie, Arlo is known for singing songs of protest against social injustice. One of Guthrie's better-known works is "Alice's Restaurant", a satirical talking blues song about 18 minutes in length.

This was Arlo's only chart hit, although he is well known for his Thanksgiving day classic, "Alice's Restaurant Massacree."

ABC's show Good Morning America borrowed their name from the chorus in this song.

Here's more info on the City of New Orleans train: introduced in 1947, the train called City of New Orleans. Originally only a "daytime" train, its service was targeted at the rural and intermediate income markets and provided a 16 hour schedule between the two cities. In 1971 passenger service through Champaign changed dramatically. Illinois Central joined the Amtrak passenger system. Amtrak immediately discontinued all passenger services through Champaign except the City of New Orleans and the Shawnee. The City of New Orleans was renamed the Panama Limited, but Amtrak changed the name back after a short time.

The lyrics:

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 at Kankakee

Rolls along past houses, farms and fields.

Passin' trains that have no names,

Freight yards full of old black men

And the graveyards of the rusted automobiles.

[Chorus]

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.

Dealin' cards with the old men in the club car.

Penny a point ain't no one keepin' score.

Won't you pass the paper bag that holds the bottle

Feel the wheels rumblin' 'neath the floor.

And the sons of Pullman porters

And the sons of engineers

Ride their father's magic carpets made of steam.

Mothers with their babes asleep,

Are rockin' to the gentle beat

And the rhythm of the rails is all they dream.

[Chorus]

Nighttime 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 song again,

The passengers will please refrain

This train's got the disappearing 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.