City Of New Orleans Adapted By Brother Nathanael

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
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 automobiles

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
Give me five one hundred miles to get the big job done

Dealing cards with the old men in the club car
Penny a point, but I’m still keeping score
Toss the paper bag that holds the bottle
I’m feeling the rails rumbling ‘neath the floor
And the sons of Pullman porters and the sons of engineers
Have lost their fathers’ carpet made of steel
Mothers with babes unborn seeking out a steady beat
And I feel the wheels beneath my feet

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
Give me five one hundred miles to get the big job done

Night time on the City of New Orleans changing cars in Washington DC
Halfway home we can make it there by morning
Though the Jewish darkness covering like the sea
And all the towns and people seem to fade into a bad dream
The steel rails have surely heard the news
The conductor sings a sad lament, the passengers still have the scent
Though the train purrs a disappearing blues

Yet…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
Give me five one hundred miles to get the big job done