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.

We're all out on the southbound odyssey,
As the train pulls out of Kankakee,
And rolls past the houses, farms and fields.
Passing towns that have no name,
And freight yards full of old black men,
And the graveyards of rusted automobiles.

{Chorus}
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,
I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.

Dealing card games with the old men in the club cars,
A penny a point, there ain't no one keeping score.
Won't you pass the paper bag that holds the bottle,
You can feel the wheels rumbling through the floor.
And the sons of Pullman porters, And the sons of engineers,
Ride their fathers' magic carpet made of steel.
Mothers with their babes asleep,
there rocking to the gentle beat,
And the rhythm of the rails is all they dream.

{Chorus}

Midnight on the City of New Orleans,
Changing cars in Memphis, Tennessee.
Halfway home, and we'll be there by morning,
Through the Mississippi darkness, rolling down to the sea.
Then all the towns and people seem To fade into a bad dream,
The old steel rail still ain't heard the news.
The conductor sings his songs again,
The passengers will please refrain,
This train's got the disappearin' railroad blues.

{Chorus}
Singin' Goodnight 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,
I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done