Best Rock Songs About Places, Revisited

Here’s a list of beloved songs about places we might have visited. The songs, as they say, are all over the map. 

“Dancin’ in the Street”

Philadelphia, PA, Baltimore and DC now,
Can’t forget the Motor City,
All we need is music, sweet music
There’ll be music eveywhere,
They’ll be swinging and swaying and records playing,
And dancing in the street.

—Martha and the Vandellas

Rock ‘n’ roll seems to have a fascination for wandering souls…and for the places where they left a footprint. Songs such as “Dancin’ in the Street” call out a number of great American cities that have all made a unique contribution to the rock ‘n’ roll songbook.

This name-checking of locales seems to be more prevalent than you might imagine. It might have started with Chuck Berry’s 1959 track, “Back in the USA,” in which Berry salutes certain American cities after a visit to Australia.

Here are seven highlighted songs, followed by a list of 30 rock songs about places. It is by no means exhaustive.

1)The Heart of Rock & Roll, Huey Lewis and the News, 1984

When “The Heart of Rock & Roll” was released in the spring of 1984, we all thought the song was about Cleveland being the heart of rock ‘n’ roll. Cleveland was poised to become the site of the Rock Hall of Fame and paying tribute to the Ohio city seemed to be Lewis’s original intent, making a point that there was a lot of good rock between New York and LA. Right before the record’s release, the lyric was changed to “heart of rock ‘n’ roll is still beating.” Cleveland was the first city name-checked.

 

2) I Love LA, Randy Newman, 1983

Obviously, songs about California are an embarrassment of riches. I was sorely tempted to highlight “California Girls” by the Beach Boys or “California Dreamin'” by the Mamas and the Papas. Randy Newman beats them both because “I Love LA” is an anthem.

I Love It!

Randy Newman’s song heaves a hearty hurrah to life in sunny Southern California, as opposed to those cold, forbidden places we used to occupy.

Hate New York City
It’s cold and it’s damp
Let’s leave Chicago to the Eskimos

Santa Ana winds blowin’ hot from the North
Crank up the Beach Boys, baby, don’t let the music stop

From the South bay
To the valley
Cause the sun is shining all the time

I love LA (we love it!)
I love LA (we love it!)

Look at that mountain
Look at those trees
Look at that bum over there, he’s down on his knees
Look at these women
There ain’t nothing like them nowhere

Century Boulevard (we love it!)
Victory Boulevard (we love it!)
Santa Monica Boulevard (we love it!)

I love LA
I love LA
(we love it!)

 

Randy Newman

Serendipity

When “I Love LA” was released, it failed to chart. But Newman got lucky the next year when the 1984 Summer Olympics happened to be in Los Angeles. The shoe company Nike used Newman’s song in its Olympic ad campaign and “I Love LA” became a source of pride among Los Angelenos and one of LA’s top-selling songs. 

3) Walking in Memphis, Marc Cohn, 1991

Marc Cohn was at his peak with his “Walking in Memphis” off his self-titled first album. The song was nominated for Song of the Year (a big honor) at the 1992 Grammy Awards and Cohn won Best New Artist. The song peaked at #13 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

According to Cohn, “Walking in Memphis” was “100 percent autobiographical.” In 1985, Cohn took in all of the sights and sounds of Memphis: Graceland, of course, Beale Street, and a special treat: the self-described “Jewish gospel music lover” visited the actual church where former R&B singer Al Green was preaching. Inspired, Cohn returned to New York to write the song that transformed his life.

Here is the official music video of “Walking in Memphis,” a bit over four minutes with graphics galore, published by Rhino via YouTube.

4) New York State of Mind, Billy Joel, 1976

Billy Joel was literally “taking A Greyhound bus on the Hudson River Line” when the song, “New York State of Mind” popped into his head. He arrived home and went straight to the piano. In a matter of 30 minutes, he wrote what he called “a celebration of a homecoming.”

Joel had spent the three previous years in Los Angeles that included a stint at the Executive Room bar on Wilshire Blvd., where Billy played piano for six months in 1972. The characters from the song “Piano Man” were composites of customers and staff at the bar.

“I’m a New Yorker,” Joel told Mark Seale of American Way magazine. “and it’s indelibly printed on my soul that this is where I’m from and where I should be.”

5) Atlantic City, Bruce Springsteen, 1982

Well they blew up the chicken man in Philly last night
And they blew up his house too

Bruce Springsteen

The opening lines of “Atlantic City,” depicting the hit on Philly/South Jersey mob boss Phillip “Chicken Man” Testa, set the scene for a struggling young couple, deeply in debt, spending their last bucks on bus tickets to the gambling mecca, where the young man “talked to a man last night, gonna do a little favor for him.” (You can figure out where that goes.)

Bruce wrote on his Greatest Hits liner notes that he recorded the track in his bedroom “for $1,050 (the cost of a four-track Tascam recorder) mixed through an old Gibson guitar unit to a beatbox.” The song first appeared on Springsteen’s 1982 acoustical solo album Nebraska.

The Band Covers “Atlantic City”

“Atlantic City” has been covered by numerous artists, but perhaps the best version, with an upbeat tempo and full-band arrangement, was released by The Band on their 1993 album Jericho.

Here is a definitive live version of the song by The Band, filmed on August 5, 1994, in Rockford, IL, three minutes, 28 seconds of pure Band magic, published by Joe’s Video via YouTube:

6) I’m Shipping Up to Boston, Dropkick Murphys, 2005

This isn’t the Chamber of Commerce version of Boston. The song is about a sailor who loses his leg “climbing up the topsails,” and now he’s headed for Boston to find a wooden leg. 

The Punk and Celtic Band from Boston

Amazingly, the song was among many unpublished lyrics by the great Woody Guthrie. In an interview with songfacts.com, Dropkick Murphys drummer Matt Kelly explained the band’s good fortune:

We were bestowed the honor by [Woody Guthrie’s] daughter of being able to go through the lyrical archives and pick out a song or two…and the reason why we used [one song] was that it said ‘Boston’ in it. But it was pretty bare bones…and I’m thinking, let’s give it the real treatment and spend some time on it.

The song was instrumental in making ourselves popular in our own backyard. We’ve been touring since ’96…but in Boston, it was like Dropkick what?…I think being involved in [the movie] The Departed definitely put us on the map and, for better or worse, legitimized our band in Boston.

Matt Kelly

The following video of “I’m Shipping Up to Boston,” two and a half minutes short, containing shots from The Departed, distributed by WMG and published by Hellcat Records via YouTube:

7) Cleveland Rocks, Ian Hunter, 1979

The British songwriter of the rock ‘n’ roll anthem of Cleveland, Ohio, had never set foot in the intrepid midwestern enclave until Mayor Dennis Kucinich gave Hunter the key to the city on June 19, 1979. In fact, Hunter’s first version of the song was titled, “England Rocks.”

So why did this lead singer of Mott the Hoople write a song that launched a situation comedy theme song (Drew Carey) and was used by the city to land on its shores the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1983? In a 2014 article in Rock ‘n’ Roll Remnants, Hunter is quoted as saying:

I was watching TV one night and this comedian starts making fun of Cleveland…Cleveland had the coolest rock fans in the country–I wrote ‘Cleveland Rocks’ for them because they were always so great to me.

Cleveland was the first city in American to embrace Mott the Hoople…The east and west coasts had their heads up their [expletive], but Cleveland was hip to us and Roxy Music and David Bowie right away.

Ian Hunter

It certainly didn’t hurt to have as a backing band Mick Ronson on guitar (he also co-wrote) and E Streeters Gary Tallent on bass, Roy Bittan on keyboards, and Max Weinberg on drums.

Here is a live version of “Cleveland Rocks,” filmed at Cleveland’s Agora Ballroom, published by Mark Albers via YouTube:

 

 

Here are 30 of the most beloved rock songs about places:

Down in New Orleans, Dr. John
New York City, moe.
The Wives Are in Connecticut, Carly Simon
Philadelphia Freedom, Elton John
Never Been to Spain, Three Dog Night
Tulsa Time, Eric Clapton
Mexico, James Taylor
Mozambique, Bob Dylan
We Are London, Madness
Katmandu, Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band
Born in Puerto Rico, Paul Simon
Oh, Atlanta, Little Feat
California Dreamin’, the Mamas and the Papas
Creeque Alley, the Mamas and the Papas
California Girls, the Beach Boys
California, John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers
Do You Know the Way to San Jose, Dionne Warwick
Callin’ Baton Rouge, Garth Brooks
Massachusetts, Bee Gees
Omaha, Counting Crows
Cleveland Rocks, Ian Hunter
I’m Shipping Up to Boston, Dropkick Murphys
Atlantic City, Bruce Springsteen
New York State of Mind, Billy Joel
Leningrad, Billy Joel
Walking in Memphis, Marc Cohn
I Love LA, Randy Newman
The Heart of Rock & Roll, Huey Lewis and the News
Dancin’ in the Streets, Martha & the Vandellas
Back in the USA, Chuck Berry

So what songs did I miss? There’s a comments section below.