Dixie Flyer

Album: Land Of Dreams (1988)
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  • I was born right here, November forty three
    Dad was a captain in the army
    Fighting the Germans in Sicily
    My poor little momma
    Didn't know a soul in L.A.
    So we went down to the Union Station
    Made our getaway

    Got on the Dixie Flyer bound for New Orleans
    Across the state of Texas to the land of dreams
    On the Dixie Flyer bound for New Orleans
    Back to her friends and her family in the land of dreams

    Her own mother came to meet us at the station
    Her dress as black as a crow in a coal mine
    She cried when her little girl got off the train
    Her brothers and her sisters came down from Jackson, Mississippi
    In a great green Hudson driven by a Gentile they knew
    Drinkin' rye whiskey from a flask in the back seat
    Tryin' to do like the Gentiles do
    Christ, they wanted to be Gentiles, too
    Who wouldn't down there, wouldn't you
    An American Christian, God damn

    On the Dixie Flyer bound for New Orleans
    Back to her friends and her family in the land of dreams
    On the Dixie Flyer bound for New Orleans
    Across the state of Texas to the land of dreams
    Across the state of Texas to the land of dreams Writer/s: RANDY NEWMAN
    Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group
    Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 4

  • Fong Tong from Atlanta GaIn reality, the "Dixie Flyer" train went from Chicago to Florida via Nashville and Atlanta - it went nowhere near Los Angeles. The train from Los Angeles to New Orleans was (and still is) called the "Sunset Limited."
  • The Land Of Green Ginger from Essex, UkNew Orleans is known as The Land of Dreams long before Randy Newman, from a Louis Armstrong lyric, no irony, even if he wasn't a jazz fan he'd have heard it called that, as well as The Crescent City, The Big Easy etc
  • Dave from New England, UsThough Newman's parents were Jewish, they were nonobservant--definitely not orthodox. He has said that he grew up with no religious identity. Regardless, it would have been easier at the time to live in the American South--"down there" as he refers to it in the song--being Christian.
  • Rene from New Orleans, Larandy, as normal being tongue-in-cheek calling new orleans the land of dreams; but i like it...
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