City of New Orleans (song)
City of New Orleans is a song by the American folk singer Steve Goodman from 1971. In Germany , the song was also used with a different text under the title When will it be summer again? in a hit version by the Dutch show master Rudi Carrell .
origin
Steve Goodman wrote the protest song about a ride on the City of New Orleans train in 1971 . The background to this was the shutdown of two-thirds of the American long-distance trains in the same year after the Nixon government released the private railway companies from their obligation to operate passenger trains . The newly founded state passenger rail company Amtrak also underlined the previously from the Illinois Central Railroad operated City of New Orleans , which until then for the ordinary people of New Orleans and the southern states the cheapest travel option in the rich north to Chicago had been.
Goodman's refrain sums up his opinion on the disappearance of rail passenger transport in the indictment:
- Good morning america how are you
- Don't you know me, I'm your own son
- I am the train called the "City of New Orleans" ...
In addition, the last stanza says:
- The conductor sings his songs again
- Passengers are asked not to ... (*)
- This train has the blues of the disappearing railroad.
(*) In English: The passengers will please refrain - here the song touches on a polite prohibition formula as used by the railway companies towards passengers. This special formulation is also a central component of a well-known, coarse American folk poetry, which is widespread in many variants, but mostly deals with the ban on using the wagon toilets while the train is in the station. It begins, for example, as follows: The passengers will please refrain / from flushing toilets while the train / is standing in the station ... This is sung to the melody from Dvořák's humoresque No. 7 .
Steve Goodman's recording didn't make it onto the Hot 100 , but Arlo Guthrie's one did . It reached number 18 on the US charts in 1972, making it Guthrie's greatest commercial success.
Cover versions
The song was also recorded and performed by many other artists such as John Denver , Johnny Cash and Judy Collins . When Willie Nelson recorded City of New Orleans for the second time in 1984, it landed a number one hit on the US country charts . Because of this, Goodman was posthumously awarded a Grammy for Best Country Song in 1985.
Versions in other languages
There was a first German-language version in 1972 by the Austrian singer Jonny Hill with the title A Train called City Of New Orleans . In the same year, a French version of the chanson singer Joe Dassin followed with the title Salut les amoureux .
In 1973 the Dutchman Gerard Cox took over the song and made 't Is weer voorbij die mooie zomer out of it (The beautiful summer is over again). With his new wording he had a number one hit in the Dutch charts at the end of 1973 .
In 1974 the pop singer Ronny published the title Once the most beautiful summer passes with the same melody and melancholy lyrics that essentially followed the Dutch version. A year later, the Dutchman Rudi Carrell took over the version from his home country, and Thomas Woitkewitsch wrote the text in German to read When will it be summer again? . The song appeared with Ariola on Carrell's album Schlager and was not released as a single with Heul on the B-side . The song reached number 18 in the German charts in the year of publication.
In 1995 Dieter Thomas Kuhn published a cover version of When will it be summer again? , a year later the band Creme 21 . It came to number 36 in the German charts. In 2009 the song was published in German and English by the singer Indira Weis .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ed Cray: The Erotic Muse. American Bawdy Songs . 2nd, revised edition. University of Illinois Press, Urbana, Chicago 1999, pp. 237 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
- ^ Roland, Tom: The Billboard Book Of Number One Country Hits . New York City / New York: Billboard Books; London: Guinness Publishing Ltd., 1991, p. 401
- ↑ austriancharts.at , accessed on June 22, 2010.