Riding on the City Of New Orleans   Illinois Central, Monday morning rail   Fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders   Three Conductors; twenty-five sacks of mail   All along the southbound odyssey - the train pulls out of Kankakee   And rolls along past houses, farms, and fields   Passing trains that have no name, and freight yards full of old black men   And the graveyards of the rusted automobile      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 man in the Club Car   Penny a point - ain't no one keeping score   Pass the paper bag that holds the bottle   Feel the wheels rumbling 'neath the floor   And the sons of Pullman Porters, and the sons of Engineers   Ride their father's magic carpets made of steel   And, mothers with their babes asleep rocking to the gentle beat   And the rhythm of the rails is all they feel      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      Night time on the City Of New Orleans   Changing cars in Memphis Tennessee   Halfway home - we'll be there by morning   Through the Mississippi darkness, rolling down to the sea   But, all the towns and people seem to fade into a bad dream   And the steel rail still ain't heard the news   The conductor sings his songs again - the passengers will please refrain   This train got the disappearing railroad blues      Good night, 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