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Posted on 12/07/2005 7:38:29 AM PST by Paul R.
Arlo Guthrie & Friends will travel the Amtrak City of New Orleans train for twelve days in December, performing along the way to benefit the small venues in the train’s namesake city that were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Arlo was the first to record Steve Goodman’s song, “City of New Orleans” and make it a national hit. The song is based on a version of the train prior to the creation of Amtrak.
(Excerpt) Read more at jaytv.com ...
Now, lessee... can I get back from St. Louis in time to catch the show at "The Copper Dragon" & still be half alive at work in KY, 7:00 a.m. Tuesday? Hmmm and hmmmmm..... (Where's that ol' radar detector...)
Who cares ??
This all "touchy feely" PC crap !
"You can get anything that you want......."
I agree! Arlo will will probably high as a kite!
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And that's the way it should be!
exceptin' Alice...
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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 Rolls along past houses, farms and fields. Passin' trains that have no names, Freight yards full of old black men And the graveyards of the rusted automobiles. 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, 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. Pass the paper bag that holds the bottle Feel the wheels rumblin' 'neath the floor. And the sons of pullman porters And the sons of engineers Ride their father's 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 you? 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. Nighttime on The City of New Orleans, Changing cars in Memphis, Tennessee. Half way home, we'll be there by morning Through the Mississippi darkness Rolling down to the sea. And 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's got the disappearing railroad blues. Good night, 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, I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.  |
Good mornin' America, how are you?A little Googling reveals that Amtrak's City of New Orleans averages about 49 mph, so Arlo's journey would take a little more than 10 hours.
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
If Arlo made the same trip on Maglev, he'd be there in less than two!!!
Heck, he could even be there and back in the same day!!!
Flew her to Memphis, got on The City of New Orleans;
Had a Pullman berth and all that;
Went down and spent a week in New Orleans.
She swears to this day that the best gumbo she had the entire time was on the dining car of that train.
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For folks who wonder
why people liked folk singers,
listen to THAT track!
yep 500 miles not 10,000 as I posted. But hey - nostalgia isn't what it used to be!
I'm happy that Arlo covered "City of New Orleans", but his version can't hold a candle to the original.
Arlo's dad was a communist. The fruit did not fall far from the tree. Arlo's schtick is much more understated than Woody's, but he's a leftist through and through. I've known this for thirty-five years. I don't know where y'all have been. Try Googling "Arlo Guthrie" and "politics" and see where this leads you. Sure, I like him as a singer (though Willie Nelson's "City of New Orleans" is far superior to my ear). But how any FReeper can not realize that this Katrina tour is going to be a standard-issue, leftist Bush-bash (albeit one delivered in a droll, off-handed style, in contrast to the typical Mother Sheehan/Medea Benjamin shrieking) is beyond me.
417 MPH was a little tougher to achieve in the olden days, especially with all those stops.
If you miss the train I'm on, you will know that I am gone
You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles,
A hundred miles, a hundred miles, a hundred miles, a hundred miles,
You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles.Lord I'm one, lord I'm two, lord I'm three, lord I'm four,
Lord I'm 500 miles from my home.
500 miles, 500 miles, 500 miles, 500 miles
Lord I'm five hundred miles from my home.Not a shirt on my back, not a penny to my name
Lord I can't go a-home this a-way
This a-away, this a-way, this a-way, this a-way,
Lord I can't go a-home this a-way.If you miss the train I'm on you will know that I am gone
You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles.
he was here couple weeks ago at Thanksgiving for the 40th anniversary of Alice's Restaurant... and i believe he's a Catholic now.
Years ago I saw Arlo playing in a scummy bar in Montreal. He told the story how this geeky guy came to one of his gigs and approached him at a break. He wanted Arlo to listen to a song he had written. He felt it would be a perfect match for Arlo. Arlo put him off saying he might get around to it when the gig was over. The geek sat there all night so Arlo had to listen.
The geek was Steve Goodman and the song was City of New Orleans. The rest is a wonderful treat for anyone who loves Americana. It is perfectly in tune with the spirit of Woody Guthrie.
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