I couldn’t get a song out of my head for several days… I find it nostalgic and haunting, written by Steven Goodman and made famous by Arlo Guthrie, called “The City of New Orleans”… for me it was as if the train was calling on America to think again about who we are and what it all means as we pass our five hundred miles of life. How we see each other and how we see the world we are leaving for others. The first verse I left the same, except Mr. Goodman described passing towns with no name, instead of trains as Mr. Guthrie recorded the song. The second verse is largely my fabricated notion of what a world we are in the afternoon of our lives. How we see others, how judgmental we can become, and how we should see rather the simple joy of kids that ask the engineer to blow his horn. The last verse, I changed from “Dealin’ cards with the old men in the club car… Penny a point ain’t no one keepin’ score” to reflect our current form of distraction, our smart phones, and I try to bring into the thought the memory again of being young and the joy of rocking babes to sleep. As we fade into our evenings of life what are we leaving for our grandsons and granddaughters… our dreams.
Good Morning America, How are you?
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’ towns that have no names
Freight yards full of old black men
And the graveyards of the rusted automobiles
Good afternoon 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
And where were you
When the City of New Orleans came rumbling by
When all the towns and people seem
To fade into a bad dream
And the steel rails still hadn’t heard the news
A train can have the disappearing railroad blues
Don’t you recognize your native son
Why do you think you have to judge anyone
When they just would like you to listen to what they said
After-all they pledged a sacred allegiance just as you did
And those that came after with desire to be as one
With us in heart, sharing the dream of a native son
Regardless where they came from or where they were born
And the engineer waves and gives a blast of the horn
From his perch sitting way up high on the train
For children in their yards pulling an imaginary chain
Good evening 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
Sitting each with our phones, no one talking anymore
Playing mind numbing games, no one keeping score
Pass the filtered purchased water as world rumbles by
And grandsons of Pullman porters
And the granddaughters of engineers
Ride their father’s magic carpet of diesel and rail
Mother’s with their babes asleep
Rocking to the gentle beat
Dreaming of a peaceful moonlit night and quiet sail
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
