Arlo Guthrie: City of New Orleans Meaning

City of New Orleans Lyrics

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...

1. anonymous

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   Apr 3rd 2021 !⃝

   The explanation given here is a bundle of crap and doesn't even try to get into the thoughts behind the lyrics.
   
   It would be more meaningful if you actually tried.
   
   What about "still ain't heard the news" ? What news? What does this refer to? I'm sure the writer here would say the death of Abraham Lincoln at the hands of an assassin, but the true is this song is not set during or immediately after the civil war as disappearing railroad blues didn't occur until the 1900s.
2. kooljohn176

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   Feb 17th 2016 !⃝

   A Enduring old American classic for the soul to endure in this song originally performed and written by STEVE GOODMAN [r.i.p] from the Chicago area that became more well known to be performed also by ARLO GUTHRIE about the train ride after leaving on the Illinois Central. When Steve's wife fell asleep he started to write about what he saw and visioned while playing a card game on the train. This song to me is also ''painted'' in the American scenery leaving the south and traveling up north in ''thought'' within the bittersweet memories that were left back in time as a poor wasteland ever since the Civil War days to bring up to the surface of the north that gradually brought the ''EXODUS'',more for our Negro Americans to head north as a God's promise to ''Ride their Father's carpet made of steel'' in that their Fathers helped build the railroads that for many became the trail of tears falling on the rails of steel to find themselves in their children and out of the ''CARPETBAGGERS THEFT'' leaving for a new home to find north from the ''CITY OF NEW ORLEANS''.

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