A Railroad Goodbye to a Summer of Love

Steve Goodman: I guess I'll start off the panel by saying this is all made up. I never really gave this interview in 2023, since I passed away from leukemia in 1984, but wouldn't it be cool if I had? Then I could do one last collaboration with my fellow artists and bring together the different meanings people brought to my 1970 melody, "The City of New Orleans."

Gerard Cox: Yeah, it would be cool to see you party like it's 2023. Your song was so sad, but I like to focus on living in the moment. Would you like to know what I really think about climate change?

Steve Goodman: Because the old railways were coming to an end. Don't you know how it was in 1970? I was riding the Illinois Central and the passenger train was almost empty. Nixon passed the Rail Passenger Service Act that year, letting states stop running the train lines, which weren't profitable anymore. It was the end of a piece of history.

Joe Dassin: Well, Gerard, and Steve, I think you'd both love "Salut les Amoureux", my French lyrics for Steve's melody. That's a melancholy song too, but it's about love, not about a train. Loss of love.

Gerard Cox: Well, I want a summer of love. Like in "'t Is weer voorbij, die mooie zomer. Because I want it to be really, properly hot, in every sense of the word. And if we have to have climate change anyway, I don't see any sense in being miserable about it if I don't have to.

Yehoram Gaon: That beautiful spring in Tel Aviv, I visited my grandparents. That's what my Shalom Lach Eretz Nehederet lyrics sprung from. I could do without the heat. As for loss of love, time makes everything pass away.

Steve Goodman: I would never have ridden the train that summer, except that we were visiting my wife's grandmother. A 13-hour train ride on an almost-abandoned train. Old cars, old men, old scenes. Visiting an old, loved, grandmother. Loving my wife. Those were good times. I was happy to be alive. What do you think? Should we collaborate and write a Railroad Goodbye to a Summer of Love?

Gerard Cox: Well, I wish we could. But since this interview is all made up, the world will never know.