Well a friend of mine named Steve Goodman wrote that song
and he told me it was the perfect country and western song
I wrote him back a letter and I told him it was not
The perfect country and western song because he hadn't
Said anything at all about mama,
Or trains, or trucks, or prison, or gettin' drunk
well he sat down and wrote another verse to the song
and he sent it to me,
and after readin' it,
i realized that my friend had written the perfect
country & western song
and i felt obliged to include it on this album
the last verse goes like this here.

John met Steve when he went to see the great man who had written what John called the Best Railroad song ever recorded. To paraphrase John from an interview:

I had heard that the guy who wrote "City of New Orleans" was playing at the Earl and I wanted to go listen to him. I had this mental picture of what the signer would like. I was expecting to see this real tall, skinny guy with a goatee and a real deep voice.

So I walk in and I ask if I could meet Steve Goodman and this little guy with long hair and a full beard walks over and I ask him if he was going to take me back to meet Steve Goodman and he tells me he was Steve Goodman.

Another time that John recalled their meeting he added "God works in mysterious ways."

http://steve-goodman.hegewisch.net/prine.html

Billastro