Monday, July 14, 2008 - 
4 comments
4 comments
New Music Monday
Arlo Guthrie's cover of Steve Goodman's paean to America's fading railroads, “City of New Orleans,” came out as the single from Guthrie's Hobo's Lullaby LP in 1972. I had no idea this song was written by someone else! So here's what I learned about the song...
Goodman wrote this song in 1970. He wrote the lyrics on a sketch pad after his wife fell asleep on the Illinois Central train, where they were going to visit his wife's grandmother. Goodman wrote about what he saw looking out the windows of the train and playing cards in the club car. Everything in the song actually happened on the ride. After he returned home he heard the train was scheduled to be decommissioned do to lack of passengers.
As for Arlo Guthrie and his success with this song here's a bit about the artist and song....City of New Orleans was Guthrie's only Billboard hit which hit number 18 in '72 and set him apart from his famous folk singing father Woody Guthrie. While "New Orleans" was his only hit, it was not the song that he is most noted for. Have you ever listened to "Alice's Restaurant" on a Thanksgiving? I highly recommend you do that!
Okay....I'm off to finish unpacking and put together a bit of a post of our trip.
4 comments:
Can't wait to see pictures of your trip!
Can't wait to hear more about it and see those pics, glad you guys had a great time!
I loved that song growing up! My favorite covers of it were John Denver and Judy Collins.
"I'm the train they call the City of New Orleans
I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done."
Yep, that's a good one.
I'm glad that you had a great trip. And this New Music Monday is really cool!
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