Songs about your hometown

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Colin Newman mentions Oslo in the lyrics of "Lorries" off Not To. The full chorus apparently goes
Soixante nouveau
Lieb' dich, bateaux
Warsaw, Treptow
Venezia, Oslo
Moscow So, it doesn't seem to "capture anything interesting" about the town - - but that is Mr Newman for you, I spose.

Quite like the song and album, though.

― OleM, Sunday, 10 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Just done the websearch thing, and I'm bemused to find that there's a song by the Fall called The Horror In Clay which is about some weird goings-on in Penzance. Apparently. I downloaded the lyric, but can make head nor tail of the thing.

Anyone like Gilbert & Sullivan?

― harvey williams, Sunday, 10 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Well, technically it's not about the city, but Autechre named one of their earlier songs Montreal. (This was on Amber when the songs had melodies and their titles were pronounceable) Someone told me it's because they first tried ecstasy when they played here in '93 or '94 ....interesting.

― Elliot, Monday, 11 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Thanks for reviving this thread.

Not my home town for many years, but the first place I thought of when reading the question was Crawley, hometown also of Robert Smith - not that he would ever have dreamt of mentioning the place in a Cure song. So to google, and I'm past the 100th ranked hit and have almost given up, when there it is: "Sea Side Shuffle" by Terry Dactyl and the Dinosaurs. (woo-hoo)

― Jeff W, Monday, 11 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Ooooh, fuck! I've got one!

Mirror People by Love & Rockets is about a punk/new wave bar (or, its patrons) from the early 80's - just down the street from me (although the name is never mentioned in the song.)

― Dave225, Monday, 11 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

That only mentions Crawley because it's about driving from London to Brighton and it's somewhere you go through: "down on the coast, way past the town of Craw-LEE" (emphasis on second syllable, improbably).

I like Gilbert & Sullivan.

― Robin Carmody, Monday, 11 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

There's at least one song per Ida record about my hometown; my favorite is "Downtown." I especially like the reference to Chick & Ruth's Deli, and the correct observation that "downtown (Annapolis, Maryland) is full of the sound of the full- and the part-time losers."

My favorite song about the town in which I now live is the Tiger Lillies' "Russians," which is about the Saturday flea market in Sachsenhausen.

― Colin Meeder, Tuesday, 12 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

four months pass...

The Rentals and Mark Eitzel both name-check Columbus, OH, in one song each. I'm sure a handful of Eitzel songs are about Columbus in one way or another, but I don't know what they are.

― bryce, Wednesday, 10 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

three years pass...

Janet Bean of Freakwater released a solo album last year called Dragging Wonder Lake, named after my hometown in northern Illinois. Her parents met there. A really excellent album, totally overlooked when it was released.

also, on the east side of the lake, about three miles away is the town of Johnsburg, IL, which was namechecked in TWO songs: Tom Waits' "Johnsburg, IL" and the Handsome Family song "In the Air", from the album of the same name. It's a tiny town, maybe a thousand people. Same as mine.

― gear (gear), Saturday, 31 December 2005 06:40 (eighteen years ago) link

I don't have a hometown, really, but I don't know any songs about either the place I was born (Palo Alto) or grew up in the general vicinity of (Rochester). Someday I will write the Palo Alto Rochester Blues.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Saturday, 31 December 2005 07:33 (eighteen years ago) link

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00005TO15.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

― poortheatre (poortheatre), Saturday, 31 December 2005 07:58 (eighteen years ago) link

There a really terrible Tom Cochrane song about a club in Vancouver (where i live)

― Freud Junior (Freud Junior), Saturday, 31 December 2005 08:24 (eighteen years ago) link

Taxi Girl - PARIS

― snowballing (snowballing), Saturday, 31 December 2005 10:01 (eighteen years ago) link

Sods: Copenhagen ("Copenhagen cancer city kill")
Love Shop: Copenhagen Dreaming

― Jay-Kid (Jay-Kid), Saturday, 31 December 2005 10:45 (eighteen years ago) link

"Susie Cincinnati" The Beach Boys
"Cincinnati Fatback" Roogalotor
"Cincinnati Jail" Lonnie Mack
"Camp Washington Chili" Lonnie Mack
"Oh Atlanta" Little Feat (describes CVG airport)
"Cincinnati Daddy" Duke Ellington
"Cincinnati Stomp" Big Joe Duskin
"Cincinnati Dancing Pig" Tennesse Ernie Ford
"The Cincinnati Kid" Ray Charles

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Saturday, 31 December 2005 12:14 (eighteen years ago) link

John cale - PARIS 1919
(on est dans la place, mister boule de neige!)

― My life with Baaderonixx and the Choco-pops babies (Fabfunk), Saturday, 31 December 2005 14:10 (eighteen years ago) link

I think the song's called "The Pop Place" or something (it's on the third Trashcan Sinatras album, a Happy Pocket) but it does namecheck my hometown of Dumfries, Scotland.

― Binjominia (Brilhante), Saturday, 31 December 2005 14:43 (eighteen years ago) link

there have never been any songs written about either brooklyn or new york to my knowledge.

― is this an institution of learning or a teenage brothel? (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 31 December 2005 14:44 (eighteen years ago) link

although technically i was born in queens. one day i'll write a song called "queens."

― is this an institution of learning or a teenage brothel? (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 31 December 2005 14:45 (eighteen years ago) link

pharoahe monch beat you to it

― jermaine (jnoble), Saturday, 31 December 2005 15:46 (eighteen years ago) link

i won't tell if you won't

― is this an institution of learning or a teenage brothel? (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 31 December 2005 15:48 (eighteen years ago) link

fourteen years pass...

The Tannahill Weavers, "Gloomy Winter's Noo Awa'"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiwXsaPR14w

― Sonny Shamrock (Tom D.), Friday, 31 July 2020 17:49 (three years ago) link

The Fegs, "Mill Street Law and Order"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-Gm9OXQFog

― Sonny Shamrock (Tom D.), Friday, 31 July 2020 17:50 (three years ago) link

... (translation) All coppers are bastards.

― Sonny Shamrock (Tom D.), Friday, 31 July 2020 17:55 (three years ago) link

Beside the ones already mentioned (love ´em both : Cale and Taxi Girl), to me the best is « Paris S’Eveille » by Dutronc.

― AlXTC from Paris, Friday, 31 July 2020 17:59 (three years ago) link

Oh you'll have hundreds of them, I don't have many to choose from, that Tannahill Weavers one is lovely though.

― Sonny Shamrock (Tom D.), Friday, 31 July 2020 18:01 (three years ago) link

We love to get down in Ypsilanti.
https://youtu.be/e_vyGFvPaMs

― BrianB, Friday, 31 July 2020 18:18 (three years ago) link

one year passes...

This never fails to crack me up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUY6dBdgWR

Attn: jaymc

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Friday, 11 March 2022 21:17 (two years ago) link

Accurate:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGAqZakJoMg

― The sensual shock (Sund4r), Sunday, 13 March 2022 00:04 (two years ago) link

I'm going to post this one again because the link I posted before no longer works and this song is so lovely:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SU0HLLfSVEI

― Alfred Ndwego of Kenya (Tom D.), Sunday, 13 March 2022 00:16 (two years ago) link

Also the story of Robert Tannahill, whose statue I must have passed hundreds of times, is so sad.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Tannahill

― Alfred Ndwego of Kenya (Tom D.), Sunday, 13 March 2022 00:18 (two years ago) link

A ton of The Hold Steady's songs are about places I grew up around, so I figured one would mention where I grew up (Burnsville), and indeed one does:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwQWnv-PyGc

― deep luminous trombone (Eazy), Sunday, 13 March 2022 00:21 (two years ago) link

I took the train to Richmond that fell
It was a time I remember, oh so well

― zacata, Sunday, 13 March 2022 13:36 (two years ago) link

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