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Subject: City of New Orleans From: GUEST,mapman2@aol.com Date: 23 Mar 01 - 09:27 AM Does anyone know the background of the Steve Goodman song "City of New Orleans?" |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: Mrrzy Date: 23 Mar 01 - 09:28 AM Steve Goodman? (Sorry, I couldn't resist!) |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: catspaw49 Date: 23 Mar 01 - 09:35 AM Pretty decent Steve Goodman pages located HERE Spaw |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: chip a Date: 23 Mar 01 - 11:23 AM Don't know the background, but it's one of the best train songs ever. What a picture of America! Chip |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: Mary in Kentucky Date: 23 Mar 01 - 11:34 AM Does anyone else remember? When one of the space vehicles was orbiting, the control at Houston used that song to wake the astronauts. I think the ship was named "America" or something. |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: Mike Regenstreif Date: 23 Mar 01 - 11:41 AM "The City of New Orleans" was a train that ran from Chicago to New Orleans. Steve wrote the song when Amtrak was talking about cancelling the train. Mike Regenstreif |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: mousethief Date: 23 Mar 01 - 11:56 AM Amtrak? Are you sure? I didn't think Amtrak was that old. And he says "Illinois Central." But I've been wrong before. Not here, of course. |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: Mike Regenstreif Date: 23 Mar 01 - 12:10 PM Mousethief, Amtrak was created around 1970 or '71. Steve wrote the song around that time. I first met Steve when he came to Montreal not long after and I remember him introducing the song with the story about Amtrak. Mike Regenstreif |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: John Hardly Date: 23 Mar 01 - 12:12 PM Without a doubt, one of the funniest Steve Goodman stories ever centers on his explanation of the phrase "...the passengers will please refrain...". |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: GUEST Date: 23 Mar 01 - 12:16 PM John, ....and that would be........??????? Frank |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: mousethief Date: 23 Mar 01 - 12:18 PM Well, I said I'd been wrong before. Then why does he say "Illinois Central"? |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: catspaw49 Date: 23 Mar 01 - 12:35 PM Probably because it was an IC train before Amtrak, and while Illinois Central, Chesapeake and Ohio, New York Central, Pennsy, and others, along with their trains like the Broadway Limited or Twentieth Century Limited call up romantic visions of the past, the name AMTRAK has all the romance of a pocket calculator. Spaw |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: Jim Dixon Date: 23 Mar 01 - 12:37 PM The City of New Orleans is the name of a passenger train, formerly belonging to the Illinois Central, now Amtrak. It runs between Chicago and New Orleans, by way of Memphis. (Click for map, courtesy of Amtrak.) Railroad passenger routes have traditionally had names, not just numbers, unlike airline flights. Anyone who loves trains would love to browse through this web page I just found called Named Passenger Trains of 1948. Here are the passenger trains that used to pass through St. Paul, MN as recently as 1970: The Badger, The Empire Builder, The Fast Mail, The Gopher, The Mainstreeter, The Morning Hiawatha, The North Coast Limited, The Pioneer Limited, The Western Star, The Zephyr And most of those ran several times per day! A total of 30 trains on some days! Now there is only one per day going each direction: the Empire Builder. (It runs from Chicago to either Seattle or Portland, OR, splitting at Spokane, WA.) And it doesn't go to the old station in downtown St. Paul; it goes to a little nondescript station in the middle of an industrial district midway between downtown St. Paul and downtown Minneapolis. According to Amtrak's site, it looks like the City of New Orleans also only runs once per day each direction. |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: Bert Date: 23 Mar 01 - 12:51 PM I lost my kippers on "The City of New Orleans", Cousin Rhonda was bringing them for me. She had a whole cooler packed full of frozen kippers. When she arrived in Memphis she discovered that someone had stolen the cooler. I can just imagine the look on the thief's face when he opened the cooler, probably expecting to find beer. Bert. |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: Jim the Bart Date: 23 Mar 01 - 12:59 PM The City of New Orleans was (and is) a very popular way to travel to the University of Illinois in Champaign/Urbana - for partying as well as studying. I don't know if Steve ever rode it for that reason, but I am among the many Chicagoans who have. |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: GUEST,Roll&Go-C Date: 23 Mar 01 - 01:02 PM Frank, the "passengers will please refrain" reference is probably to a humoresque song which sometimes syrfaces at railroading special events, usually in the darker corners. As The Black Diamond String Band (Michigan) used to sing it: PASSENGERS WILL PLEASE REFRAIN (ANON) Passengers will please refrain, From flushing toilets while the train Is in the station, darling, I love you; We encourage constipation, While the train is in the station, Moonlight always makes me think of you. If you wish to pass some water, Simply call the pullman porter, He'll place a vessel in the vestibule; If the porter isn't near, Try the platform in the rear, The one in front is likely to be cool. If the women's room be taken, Never be the least forsaken, Never show a sign of sad defeat; Try the men's room 'cross the hall, And if some man has had the call He'll courteously relinquish you his seat. If these efforts prove in vain, Simply break a window pane; This novel method used by very few; And as we go strolling through the park, Goosing statues in the dark, If Sherman's horse can take it,why can't you? Well, now you know! |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: Whistle Stop Date: 23 Mar 01 - 01:05 PM As I understand it, "the passengers will please refrain" is what the conductors used to announce when a train was about to pull into the station. The passengers were asked to refrain from flushing the toilets, because they emptied directly onto the tracks -- which is fine when you're chugging across the open prairie, but was considered to be somewhat indelicate in the station. |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: GUEST,Roll&Go-C Date: 23 Mar 01 - 01:06 PM The above should be addressed to John, not Frank. Frank probably has his own set of verses for this "Passengers Will Please Refrain." |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: John Hardly Date: 23 Mar 01 - 01:08 PM From the liner notes of "no big surprise--The Steve Goodman Anthology After Steve recorded the song for Buddah Records, Neil Bogart, then the president of that company, asked him (and Rosie Grier, and a singer called "The Soul Of Country Music") to join Democratic candidate Edmund Muskie's 1972 whistlestop campaign through Florida for the presidential primary there. Steve didn't believe there were political solutions to life's problems. He wrote songs about politians with outrageous and audacious vagaries, bestowing upon them the irreverent admiration he always showed for desperados, con artists and pitchmen. In addition, Steve was coming off a recent bout of chemotherapy. But the chanced to observe a politician in action was too good to pass up, so he went along...when the train reached Sebring, the organizers made sure a big (bought-and-paid-for) crowd and lots of reporters would turn out. After Rosey, "The Soul", and Steve did their thing, warming up the crowd by singing from the observation car platform, Muskie emerged (Lincoln-like) and launched into his speech. The entertainers retired to the air-conditioned lounge section. Steve suddenly felt stomach cramps--the after-effects of chemo, combined with symptoms of a lingering flu and an ill-advised Mexican meal the night before--and he dashed for the toilet. There hung the traditional sign, which he himself had immortalized in song: "Passengers will please refrain from flushing toilet while train is in the station." Steve arose from the seat, a lighter and happier man. He reached for the cord. He hestitated. What was the worst that could happen? Presumbly his loathsome and semi-radioactive deposit would simply fall below and be left (anonymously) between the tracks when the train pulled out. He yanked the cord and walked meekly back into the car. He had no way of knowing that on this particular state-of-the-art passenger car, waste matter was sucked out of the toilet and straight back through vacuum tubes along the sides to be sprayed in a fine mist from the rear of the train. Muskie's campaign manager burst into the car howling, "People are being covered with shit out there!" Steve's reply: "Hey, man, he's your candidate!" --Nancy Goodman Tenney |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: Whistle Stop Date: 23 Mar 01 - 01:09 PM Roll&Go, looks like we were answering the question at the same time. I never heard the song you quoted, but I do remember taking a train from Washington D.C. to the gulf coast of Mississippi as a child in the early 1960's -- and "don't flush when you're coming into the station" were our instructions. |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: mousethief Date: 23 Mar 01 - 01:16 PM Actually it's not anon. It was written by a New York supreme court justice. Doggone it, I thought i had the reference somewhere but I can't find it. I'll keep looking. |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: mousethief Date: 23 Mar 01 - 01:20 PM Okay, I got the last name, it's Justice Douglas. The song, by the way, is sung to the tune of Humoresque by Dvorak. Same as "we went strolling through the park and goosed the statues in the dark." The good Justice noticed a sign on the restroom door in the train ("Passengers will please refrain from using toilets while the train is standing in the station.") and noticed that it fit perfectly the melody of the Dvorak humoresque if you add three syllables to the end ("I love you.") The rest (or at least part of it) he wrote himself, although many verses have glommed onto it in the ensuing years due to the "folk process." Which is what Mudcat is all about, hey? Alex |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: mousethief Date: 23 Mar 01 - 01:22 PM Man, the internet is a glorious thing. Justice William O. Douglas. |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: Pseudolus Date: 23 Mar 01 - 04:06 PM I may never be able to sing that line (passengers will please refrain) without a smile on my face!!! Great story... Frank |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: John Hardly Date: 23 Mar 01 - 04:12 PM He said more about politics in a single flush than we could hope to in the thousands of posts here on the 'cat. Glad you enjoyed it Frank. |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: Micca Date: 23 Mar 01 - 05:19 PM John, that was 100%, coffee down the nose,all over the keyboard, and everything else, job.... Thank you... |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: catspaw49 Date: 23 Mar 01 - 05:22 PM I'm with Cousin Micca..........LMAO John.....just perfect!!! (as the truth often is) Spaw |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: Bert Date: 23 Mar 01 - 05:24 PM I guess that's where my kippers went. |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: catspaw49 Date: 23 Mar 01 - 06:05 PM Well, I guess we need a verse for Bert's kippers..................
August on the City of New Orleans Spaw |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: mousethief Date: 23 Mar 01 - 06:07 PM Applause! |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: Lanfranc Date: 23 Mar 01 - 06:45 PM So that's how you spell Kankakee! I've sung the song for a quarter of a century and often wondered. (I learned it by ear from the Arlo Guthrie album.) "Passengers will please refrain" was oft performed in the UK by the late Colin Scot and also by Diz Disley - nice to be reminded of that, too. If I remember aright, it was usually segued into "In the Boarding House I Lived In", which was mentioned in a recent thread. Happy memories.
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: catspaw49 Date: 23 Mar 01 - 07:28 PM CLICK HERE for a picture of the railroad depot at Kankakee. Clackety-Clack Here for a current Amtrak, "City of New Orleans" itinerary. Amtrak City of New Orleans wreck outside Kankakee The last version of the Illinois Central "City of New Orleans" pre-Amtrak. Diesel, but still good lookin'! Spaw
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: Jim Dixon Date: 23 Mar 01 - 07:35 PM Spaw, did you see my posting above? The one about romantic train names -- I figured you'd appreciate it. So many messages were added to this thread so quickly, I'll bet you missed it. |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: Bev and Jerry Date: 23 Mar 01 - 07:47 PM On May 1, 1971, Amtrak took over 300 passenger trains and cancelled a third of them. A very few passenger trains, however, continued to operate privately. The last of these, the Denver and Rio Grande Zephyr ceased operation o April 24, 1983. It ran from Denver to Salt Lake City. The Los Angeles Times marked the historic event with a six-sentence article on page two while the Los Angeles Herald Examiner and the San Diego Union failed to mention it at all. Time magazine, however, carried an excellent article by Gregory Jaynes in the May 16, 1983 issue.
This material will be on the final exam! Bev and Jerry |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: Bev and Jerry Date: 23 Mar 01 - 07:52 PM We once heard Arlo Guthrie tell a story about playing a gig in Chicago. After it was over, some guy named Steve Goodman wanted to play a song for Arlo to hear. Since he gets these requests all the time, Arlo said, "I'll tell you what - you buy me a beer and you can play and sing for me until I finish it". Steve played "City of New Orleans" and the rest is history.
Don't know if this is true. One can never tell with Arlo. Bev and Jerry |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: catspaw49 Date: 23 Mar 01 - 08:03 PM I'm sorry Jim. I did see it and even bookmarked it but forgot to thank you for it. I loved the passenger trains even with Diesels. The Pennsy was running exclusively diesel when I was a kid, but there were still a few steamers in freight service, mainly M1's and K4's. My Dad fired the last M1 to run the PanHandle Division into Columbus in 1954 where they were scrapped. He and his engineer, Steve Bodie, both loved the steamers. He had been an engineer for 20 years when he died, all on diesel (he spent his entire working and army life on the railroad), but he still told great tales of the K3's and K4's and the muscular M1's. Back in those days too, rail employee's families always had free passes and there were still plenty of passenger trains. In 1956 we drove to Chicago to take the Broadway to NYC and I have the greatest memories of that trip. The appointments were so much better than on the normal passenger trains, even at that late date being pretty luxurious. It was the end of a great era. Thanks a lot for the page. I wish I had ridden many of those........Chessie's GW through the mountains must have been beautiful. Spaw |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: Art Thieme Date: 23 Mar 01 - 11:45 PM OSCAR BRAND was the first I ever heard do the "Passengers will please refrain..." song in the late 1950s. Art Thieme |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: GUEST,Roll&Go-C Date: 24 Mar 01 - 09:15 AM Even more than I was hoping for; I'd forgotten about Justice Douglas and I certainly never heard the wondeful tale of the Muskie Campaign Whistle Stop. Wow! The shit really hit the fan. Once again reality is far more bizarre than our fiction. And, yes, Oscar Brand does deserve credit for introducing us to many songs like "Passengers Will Please refrain." |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: Stewie Date: 24 Mar 01 - 09:55 AM Norm Cohen wrote the following in the booklet for Various Artists 'Mystery Train: Classic Railroad Songs Vol 2' Rounder CD 1129:
In 1970, Goodman and his wife of a few months took the Illinois Central's 'City of New Orleans' from Chicago to southern Illinois to visit her grandmother. His wife had just fallen asleep and Goodman began peering out of the window, jotting down all the things he saw. When he got back to Chicago, a friend told him that there was talk of taking that train out of service soon because passenger traffic had been so light. He urged Goodman to turn his prose observations into a song and help save the train. Goodman fleshed out his own observations with some additional material and recorded the song on his first album in 1971. --Stewie. |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: Bert Date: 24 Mar 01 - 11:05 PM Actually it was freezing cold at the time. Anyone remember the blizzard of March '93. There's no way them poor lil ol' kippers would have been rancid. AND they were in a cooler packed with ice. AND if you don't quit picking on me Spaw me ol' china, I'll tell you the rest of the story of that day and the drive from Alabama. About that verse - to quote Utah Phillips - "Good Though" Bert. |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: catspaw49 Date: 25 Mar 01 - 01:25 PM Well, I admit it sounds like one helluva' day Bert. Talkig to the railroad about losing your kippers probably made the day for them too....especially in Memphis. Y'all don't even speak the same language!
Bert:"Me kippers are missing." and so on................ Spaw
RR Guy: |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: phinque Date: 25 Mar 01 - 03:53 PM I thought Tom Lehrer wrote "passengers Will Please Refrain". |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: catspaw49 Date: 25 Mar 01 - 04:09 PM I can't find anything that attributes the song to Tom Lehrer and in fact it predates him by quite a bit. Most are anon or the Douglas reference, which may in fact be urban myth. Spaw |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: raredance Date: 25 Mar 01 - 05:04 PM The credence to the story that US Supreme Court Justice Willam O Douglas had a role in "Passengers will please refrain" comes for Douglas' own autobiography "Go East, Young Man" (pp171-172). This information was cited in Cray's book "The Erotic Muse". According to Douglas, he and another Yale Law School professor, Thu4rman Arnold, were riding on the New Haven Railroad in the early 1930's and were inpired by the sign:
"Thurman and I got the idea of putting these memorable words to music, and Thurman quickly came up with the musical refrain from Humoresque: Cray goes on to say that the song spread quickly and cites another source who claimed to have heard it on college campus in the 1930's and there is a WWII air force version. Brand's text was published in 1960, but I think he recorded it before that. Cray includes 4 text versions that have some of the elements in the text added above, but also has some other bawdier lines. rich r |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: catspaw49 Date: 25 Mar 01 - 05:22 PM That's interesting rich.....Not one, but two famous attorneys! Thurman Arnold also became very well known and there are both scolarships and buildings bearing his name. Douglas of course went to the Court and made his own name there. More than slightly interesting to know what they were like as young men. Spaw |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: GUEST,Joe Fineman Date: 25 Mar 01 - 07:01 PM One important part of the charm of this song, for me, is the comfort of what one might call "illicitude". One thing after another is mildly against the rules. The memory of racial discrimination is stirred up twice, and allowed to settle. The old men are gambling in a public place, and no-one cares, least of all themselves. They are drinking their own booze and cheating the Illinois Central out of its monopoly profits on the same. The conductor sings a slightly smutty song, and the mothers presumably do not take offense. There was a lively thread on this song on rec.music.folk a few years ago. |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: BH Date: 26 Mar 01 - 06:12 PM If you check out "Hot Soup's" CD you will find the humorous lines from "Passengers Will Please Refrain" on the last track. Very clever. They title it "Humoresque" and credit Oscar Brand as the author. Oscar Brand, in turn, credits Justice Wm O Douglas as the author. Since you cannot flush in the station one verse gives good advice:"...If you have to pass some water/Kindly call the Pullman Porter/ etc; Bill H |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: Art Thieme Date: 26 Mar 01 - 11:05 PM Yes,
If you wish to pass some water, Why I remembered this verse just now, I'll never know ! Art Thieme |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: Mark Cohen Date: 27 Mar 01 - 10:54 PM Speaking of misattribution, it's amazing how many people think Arlo Guthrie wrote "City of New Orleans." And wasn't it also used as the theme song of an eponymous TV show of the same name? (Thanks to the Department of Reduncancy Department for that one.) And speaking of "Humoresque", does anybody remember the one that starts, Who's the one that did the pushin' Left the stains upon the cushion...? Aloha, Mark |
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Subject: RE: City of New Orleans From: Mark Cohen Date: 27 Mar 01 - 10:56 PM Well, I really chewed off a big piece of the old shoe leather that time. The TV show was not called "City of New Orleans", of course, it was called "Good Morning, America." Oops. |
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