A strange thing happened last night. Some folks must have read my blog, because I awoke this morning to find a bunch of song suggestions in my email inbox. One of them was from my Dad, who requested/suggested “City of New Orleans,” as performed (I assume) by Willie Nelson, one of his favorites. Another one was from an old friend of mine from high school, Mike “kindofabig” Deal, who I’m guessing found the blog through one of my facebook posts. One of Mike’s suggestions was “You Never Even Call Me By My Name,” as performed by David Allen Coe.

According to the only pseudo-reference source I’ve used for this blog so far, Wikipedia, Steve Goodman broke into the music industry after pitching “City of New Orleans” to Arlo Guthrie one night in a Chicago bar^[1]. Arlo liked it so much he recorded it, it became a hit for him, and the song was soon a country standard, with Willie Nelson’s version charting #1 on Billboard’s Hot Country Singles in 1984. Steve didn’t have too much commercial songwriting success after “City of New Orleans,” save one other song that he co-wrote with John Prine^[2], “You Never Even Call Me By My Name.” Kind of a two hit wonder, I suppose, and both songs hit my inbox last night. Weird.

Anyway, I took a shot at learning “City of New Orleans.” I’ll learn the other one (notice how I didn’t use its name) next. “City of New Orleans” reminded me of a board game in that it took minutes to learn, but could take a lifetime to master. The chords are pretty basic. I played it in G, with a capo on the 5th fret, so I guess I sung it in B. The only curve ball is a B-flat chord on the chorus. Other than that there are several quick changes that are hard to get right. I miss a couple in different places each time I play the song, anyway. Vocally, the song chugs along, appropriately enough, but the lyrics are pretty dense and easy to stumble over. The lyrics are perfect for the time and for country music; train songs are pretty classic and this is one with a dose of nostalgia for fading Americana thrown in. It’s easy to see why from the moment he played it for Arlo, “City of New Orleans” became an instant classic.