Song · Steve Goodman
“City of New Orleans” by Steve Goodman
From the album Steve Goodman (1971)
“City of New Orleans” by Steve Goodman appears on 3 radio countdowns from 1 station between 2009 and 2020. It was first released in 1971 on the album Steve Goodman. Its best result is #516 on the WXPN 885 Desert Island Songs (2009). In the combined RockLists rankings it is #4,480 indie & aaa song of all time.
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"City of New Orleans" comes from Steve Goodman's self-titled 1971 album on Buddah, the song he wrote after riding the Illinois Central line to visit his wife's family. It follows a trip on the train of that name from Chicago down to New Orleans, and Goodman sings it as a bittersweet, backward-looking country-folk ride, heavy on nostalgia. Gene Eichelberger recorded it.
Other singers turned it into hits, and after his death Goodman won a songwriting Grammy for Willie Nelson's version. The song has kept its place in the American story: in June 2026, CBS News put it on a list of 250 songs it considered essential to American life across the last 250 years.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Indie & Adult Alternative
All Rock Formats
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | 516 | WXPN | WXPN 885 Desert Island Songs (2009) | 885 |
| 2010 | 578 | WXPN | WXPN 885 Ultimate Road Trip Songs (2010) | 885 |
| 2020 | 826 | WXPN | WXPN 2020 Greatest Songs of All Time | 2020 |
Also listed as: City Of New Orleans.
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