| Willie Nelson – City of New Orleans Lyrics | 3 years ago |
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@[buckeyeguy77:43027] the City of New Orleans was a passenger train that ran between Chicago and New Orleans for the Illinois Central Railroad between 1947 and 1971, when the line was taken over by Amtrak and turned into a night route called the Panama Limited. The IC train was the longest daytime route (it ran as an overnight) in the US until it's cessation in 1971. Thanks to the popularity of the song, Amtrak renamed the Panama Limited to the City of New Orleans in 1981, and the train still runs today. The song was written by Steve Goodman to lament the passing of the IC passenger travel (and all other independent passenger rail travel) due to the creation of Amtrak (hence the lyric about "disappearing railroad blues"). Arlo Guthrie (and subsequently Willie Nelson) changed a couple of lyrics likely due to a lack familiarity with railroads. Specifically, the line about "passing trains that have no names" was originally "passing towns that have no names", referring to the small towns along the railroad with no signposts identifying them. Goodman had Lukemia (which he would finally succumb to at 34 years of age in 1984), and possibly saw himself in the lyrics about a dying train, adding to the emotion of the song. |
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