Steve Goodman's "City of New Orleans"

 “Ridin' on the City of New Orleans”

By Tom Parker

(Reprinted from the June 2012 Memphis Buff

(who borrowed liberally from other sources)

Perhaps the most popular train song ever written is “City of New Orleans” by Steve Goodman. A hit for Arlo Guthrie in 1972 on his album “Hobo's Lullaby”, it has remained an all time favorite some forty years later, joining such train songs as the “Chattanooga Choo Choo”(Benny Goodman, 1941) and the “Wabash Cannonball”(Roy Acuff, 1936) as a classic railroad song.

Steve Goodman - Photo by David Gans
- licensed under "Creative Commons "

I have imagined Steve Goodman aboard the southbound “City of New Orleans” shortly before Amtrak took over, in the observation/lounge car, busily observing and writing, capturing on paper the feeling of a train having “the disappearing railroad blues”. The real story is not that simple.

In 1965 Goodman, a native of Chicago, enrolled at the University of Illinois in Champaign, Il. Like a lot of other Chicago area U of I students, he regularly used the Illinois Central to commute between Chicago and Champaign. In 1967, towards the end of his two year off and on career as a student, he decided to skip class and remained on the “City of New Orleans” until it reached its namesake destination.

Shortly afterward, in a club in Chicago's Old Town, he related his adventure to Howard Primer, a high school chum, and was particularly animated when he talked about falling asleep on the return trip. “When he woke up”, as Primer relates Goodman’s story, “it was like he was in a surreal world: The sound of the train, the rhythm of the train, the swaying of the train, looking out the windows at the misty morning on the delta country. And he was talking about ‘Good morning, America.’” The two wrote the first lyrics of the “City of New Orleans” on a napkin that night, including the phrase “don't you know me, I'm your native son”. Some time later, Goodman would add “Good morning America, how are you”.

It wasn't until some three years later that the rest of the song came together. Goodman had dropped out of school to pursue his musical career, gotten married and in 1969 was diagnosed with leukemia. In April of 1970, he and his wife boarded the “City of New Orleans” on a chilly Monday morning to visit her grandmother in a nursing home near Mattoon, Il.

“Nancy was sleeping in the seat next to me. I just took out a sketchpad, and I looked out the window and wrote down everything I saw: junkyards, little towns that didn’t even have a sign to say what they were. Just out of Chicago, there was a bunch of old men standing around tin cans, warming themselves and waving. Nancy was still asleep after about an hour and a half, so I went down to the club car and ended up playing cards with a couple of old men.”

On that train ride, Goodman wrote two verses to add to the chorus he had written three years earlier. After his return to Chicago he added a third verse describing life inside the train; “pass he paper bag that holds the bottle” and “feel the wheels rumblin' 'neath the floor”, etc.

Goodman first recorded the song on March 3, 1970 and was released on his album “Gathering at the Earl of Old Town”. John Denver had a version on his album “Aerie” released on December 4, 1971, just a few weeks after the train was cancelled by Amtrak. Neither version went anywhere.

At this point in his life Goodman was eking out a living recording jingles for TV ads (Dial Deodorant and Maybelline Blushing Eye Shadow were two of his accounts) and performing at local Chicago clubs. It was at one of these clubs that as fate would have it, Goodman met Arlo Guthrie.

Guthrie was sitting at the bar after doing a show, trying not to be noticed. The club owner approached Guthrie and said he would like him to listen to a “train” song in which might be interested. Guthrie replied angrily that he didn't like train songs, but the club owner assured him he wouldn't be disappointed and introduced Goodman to Guthrie.

Guthrie told Goodman to give him the tape, he would listen to it. Goodman replied that he didn't have a tape, but could sing it for him. This angered Guthrie even more, but he agreed with the stipulation that Goodman buy him a beer and finish the song before Arlo finished the beer. Guthrie would later say “one of the finer beers of my life”.

Arlo Guthrie's recording of “City of New Orleans” peaked at number 18 nationally and the rest, as they say, is history. The song has been recorded by at least eighty artists. Darcie Sanders, co-founder of Amazingrace, a cooperative in the Chicago suburb of Evanston that often hosted Goodman in concert, keenly observed that the song

“goes beyond classic into something archetypal that hooks into people so deeply that they’re moved, and they join in. . . . It’s the best outsider anthem anyone has ever written for America. We were the native sons and daughters, but maybe America didn’t know us or recognize us. Who has not felt that their life is disappearing? It’s the questioning, the trying to get closer, and yet the train is speeding away, the sense of the lost moment. That’s how a whole generation felt about their relationship with America and themselves as Americans.”

Original Lyrics by Steve Goodman

City of New Orleans© Turnpike Tom Music 1970

Original Lyrics by Steve Goodman

City of New Orleans© Turnpike Tom Music 1970

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
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 carpet 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
Night time on The City of New Orleans
Changing cars in Memphis, Tennessee
Half way home, and 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
Final Chorus

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

Repeat First 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