I love trains.  As a 20-year-old I crossed most of Canada to reach my first away-from-home job.  There was a dome car, and I saw the world from up high.  Even the Northern Lights.

I remember another overnight trip.  I left my seat, seeking the bathroom.  And I passed all these sleeping folks in the dark.  It was a privilege to see human beings at rest.

Now that I live in Belgium, the train has become larger in my life, with trips to London, Amsterdam, Düsseldorf, Lille and Leuven.

For the last few months, an old loved song has re-emerged, bubbling up in my soul.  And what bubbles needs to be expressed.

So I’m learning the lyrics for “City of New Orleans”.  The title is the name of a train in the USA.  It travels 1455 kilometres (904 miles) from Chicago south to New Orleans on the Gulf of Mexico.  Twenty-five hours.

Steve Goodman wrote the song in 1971.  He died in 1984 but his poetry of the train lives on.  And, God willing, it will live on a few Fridays from now at an open mic session at Salvatore’s.

Here are the lines I love:

Along the southbound odyssey
The train pulls out of Kankakee
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 rusted automobiles

Dealing cards with the old men in the club car
Penny a point, and no one keepin’ score
Pass the paper bag that holds the bottle
Feel the wheels rumblin’ ‘neath the floor

Mothers with their babes asleep
Are rockin’ to the gentle beat
And the rhythm of the rails is all they feel

Halfway home, we’ll be there by mornin’
Through the Mississippi darkness, rollin’ down to the sea

The conductor sings his songs again
The passengers will please refrain
This train’s got the disappearin’ railroad blues

***

O my goodness

I’m going to sing these fine words

And may the audience ride the City of New Orleans at my side