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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, pa**ing 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 ya? 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. Dealin' card games with the old men in the club car, penny a point ain't no one keepin' score, pa** the paper baq that holds the bottle, you can feel the wheels rumblin' neath the floor. And the sons of Pullman porters and the sons of engineers ride their fathers' magic carpets made of steel mothers with their babes asleep are rockin' to the gentle beat and the rhythm of the rails is all they feel. Good morning America, how are ya? 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 mornin through the Mississippi darkness rollin' down to the sea. But all the towns and people seem to fade into a bad dream the steel rails still ain't heard the news the conductor sings his songs again: the pa**engers will please refrain, this train's got to disappear in railroad blues. Good night America, how are ya? 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.