Nee dit-is-geen-Nederlandse-klassieker du jour: The City of New Orleans

Een zekere Nederlandse cabaretier/acteur/en nou vooruit dan noemen we hem ook zanger is recidivist in het maken van weerzinwekkende covers met totaal andere teksten in het Nederlands. The City of New Orleans gaat er niet over of u ’s nachts allang weer uw pyjama aanheeft, mijnheer. Die laten we dus ook niet zien of horen, er zijn grenzen op dit gebied.

Het origineel van Steve Goodman, 1970. Hij zingt zeer duidelijk “Good morning, American” – tegen een persoon dus, het klinkt ook net iets minder politiek incorrect. Volgende versies hebben het tegen “America”.

Riding on the City Of New Orleans
Illinois Central, Monday morning rail
Fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders
Three Conductors; twenty-five sacks of mail
All along the southbound odyssey – the train pulls out of Kankakee
And rolls along past houses, farms, and fields
Passing trains that have no name, and freight yards full of old black men
And the graveyards of the rusted automobile

Good morning, American, how are you?
Say, 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

Dealing card games with the old man in the Club Car
Penny a point – ain’t no one keeping score
As the paper bag that holds that bottle
Feel the wheels rumbling ‘neath the floor
And the sons of Pullman Porters, and the sons of Engineers
Ride their daddy’s magic carpets made of steel
And, mothers with their babes asleep rocking to the gentle beat
And the rhythm of the rails is all they feel

Good morning, American, how are you?
Say, 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

Night time on the City Of New Orleans
Changing cars in Memphis Tennessee
Halfway home – we’ll be there by morning
Through the Mississippi darkness, rolling to the sea
All the towns and people seem to fade into a bad dream
The steel rail still ain’t heard the news
The conductor sings his songs again – the passengers will please refrain
This train got the disappearing railroad blues

Good night, American, 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 night, American, how are you?
Don’t you know me? I’m your native son
I’m the train they call the City Of New Orleans
Gone a long time when the day is done

Toen Arlo Guthrie het opnam en er bekendheid aan gaf in 1972 was de trein opgeheven. In 1981 werd hij weer ingesteld. De opheffing gaf een melancholiek extra “railroad blues”-aspect aan het nummer.

Een live-versie door Willie Nelson en Sheryl Crow.