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City of New Orleans

Source Recording: The Seldom Scene (1972)

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Song Details

Songwriter

Steve Goodman

First Release

Steve Goodman (1970)

Genres

Country Folk

Themes

Train

Attributes

Minor Chords Non-Diatonic

Popularity

Uncommon

Source Recording

Artist

The Seldom Scene

Album

Key D Time Boom-Chuck Tempo 119 BPM Length 2:59 ISRC US37G0400481

Musicians

John Starling — Lead Vocals, Guitar
John Duffey — Backup Vocals, Mandolin
Mike Auldridge — Backup Vocals, Dobro
Ben Eldridge — Banjo
Tom Gray — Bass

Listen

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City of New Orleans

1 5 1

Riding on the City of New Orleans

6m 4 1 5

Illinois Central to Monday morning rail

1 5 1

Got fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders

6m 4 5 1

Three conductors and twenty five sacks of mail

6m

We’re all out on the southbound odyssey

3m

As the train pulls out of Kankakee

5 2

Rolls past the houses, farms, and fields

6m

Passing towns that have no name

3m

And the freight yards full of old black men

5 1

And the graveyards of rusted automobiles

4 1

Singing good morning America, how are you

6m 4 1 5

Yeah don’t you know me I’m your native son

1 5 1

I’m the train they call the City of New Orleans

4 5 1

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

Dealing cards with the old men in the club car

And it’s penny a point there ain’t no one keeping score

Won’t you pass that 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

Rocking to the gentle beat

The rhythm of the rails is all they dream

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

Then all the towns and people

Seem to fade into a bad dream

The old steel rail it ain’t heard the news

The conductor sings his song again

The passengers will please refrain

This train’s got the disappearin’ railroad blues

Singing goodnight America, how are you

Yeah don’t you know me I’m your native son

Well I’m the train they call the City of New Orleans

And I’ll be gone a long, long time when day is done

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