Good moring America, how are you? Doncha know me, I'm your native son
Who remembers that old refrain? I heard the song yesterday on the in-store sound system at the neighborhood grocery behemoth where I do my shopping. No surprise, really; it's just the kind of thing they play there. But then again it was a surprise, and it was entirely different, hearing that song Friday afternoon, September 2, 2005. Hum a few bars to yourself. Are the lyrics coming back to you?
Well, here's help. John Denver made it a hit, but Steve Goodman composed the words and music, and his original arrangement is exquisite:
http://goldenfiddle.com/~files/cityofneworleans.mp3. You might open the file in a new window and listen while you read on.
Now I don't expect for a minute that an actual human being queued up the song for the occasion, Day 4 of the New Orleans hurricane disaster. Clearly not, sandwiched as it was between incongruous, bubbly numbers from Leo Sayer, Avril Lavinge and Cheap Trick. For sure nobody's playing topical deejay at Raley's. It was just grocery store pipe. It was the music of chance.
Halfway through the first verse I realize I'm singing along mindlessly; it seems I've always had these lyrics perfectly by heart, though just why that should be I'm not altogether sure. I was never much a John Denver fan; truth is I had no idea who the heck sang it until yesterday when, back at home, I Googled a phrase.
I suppose my lyrical recall for (yikes) oldies has something to do with all that AM radio I soaked up in the mid 70s, and like everybody else in the world, the words of the popular songwriters of my (extreme) youth grafted to my frontal lobe and stuck there, whether I understood them or not.
Sometimes they resurface for latter day examination.
Sometimes their timing is uncanny.
So there I am at Raley's, singing away, moseying up and down the bakery aisle, checking out bread prices--Oroweat's got a couple loaves on special--when the singer gets back 'round to the chorus and the lyric finally hits me. On a dime I stop poking at the bread and shut my mouth.
For a beat or two I think maybe I ought to put my hand over my heart or genuflect or something. Instead I just stand real still.
* * * * * * * * *
Riding on The City of New Orleans
Illinois Central, Monday morning rail
15 cars and 15 restless riders
3 conductors and 25 sacks of mail
All along a southbound odyssey
The train pulls out of Kankakee
Rolls along past houses, farms and fields
Passing trains that have no name
Freight yards full of old black men
The graveyards of the rusted automobiles
Singing good morning America, how are you?
Saying, 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 500 miles when the day is done
Dealing cards with the old men in the club car
Penny a point, ain't no one keeping score
Pass the paper bag that holds the bottle
Feel the wheels a rumbling 'neath the floor
And the sons of pullman porters
And the sons of engineers
Ride their fathers' magic carpet made of steel
And mothers with their babes asleep
Rockin' to the gentle beat
And the rhythm of the rails is all they feel
Singing good morning america, how are you?
Saying 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 500 miles when the day is done
Nighttime 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
But 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 has got the disappearing railroad blues
Singing good morning America, how are you?
Saying 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 500 miles when the day is done
Words and music by Steve Goodman