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City of New Orleans: Arlo Guthrie

This Steve Goodman song, released in 1972, was Arlo's only chart hit.

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This entry was posted on April 12, 2010 at 11:21 am and is filed under Music. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

5 Comments on “City of New Orleans: Arlo Guthrie”

  2. sblake's avatar sblake Says:

    April 12, 2010 at 8:59 pm

    Steve Goodman wrote this 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. He was encouraged to use this song to save the train. He retouched the lyrics and released it on his first album in 1971.

    Guthrie’s cover in 1972 popularized the song and brought attention to rail lines that were vanishing across middle America. Many people who lived in rural areas relied on them to travel.

    Goodman died September 20, 1984 at the age of 36 after a long battle with leukemia. Shortly after his death this won a Grammy in the category of best Country song, which Nelson had recorded and made a #1 Country smash the previous year.

  3. Kat's avatar Kat Says:

    April 13, 2010 at 10:57 am

    sblake,
    I had forgotten about the Willie Nelson cover of this. It is always Arlo I think of singing this song.

    Trains are one of my favorite ways to travel!

  4. Nosila's avatar Nosila Says:

    April 13, 2010 at 11:28 pm

    I remember hearing the story (I think on a biographical Steve Goodman dvd) that Steve went up to Arlo after one of his shows and asked if he could play a song for him. Arlo said something like, I’ll tell you what–buy me a beer and I’ll listen as long as it takes me to finish the beer. The song Steve played for Arlo was City of New Orleans.

    • Kat's avatar Kat Says:

      April 14, 2010 at 10:08 am

      Nosila,
      I think Steve chose the prefect voice for this song in Arlo. Good thing it took Arlo a few minutes to drink his beer!


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