Songs About Cities

Ten love letters to places the songwriters often did not live in at the time.

Entries
10
Category
Music
Updated
  1. A 1970s muscle car speeding toward an arena at night, a concert ticket blowing out the window.

    10. Detroit Rock City

    KISS · 1976

    The opening track of Destroyer, produced by Bob Ezrin, is about a fan killed in a car crash on his way to a KISS show, set to the most upbeat riff on the album. It later lent its name to a 1999 movie about teenagers trying to get to a KISS show. Fewer car crashes.

  2. A lone highway sign pointing to San Jose on a sunny California road with a folded paper map on the asphalt.

    09. Do You Know the Way to San Jose

    Dionne Warwick · 1968

    Bacharach and David wrote it, it went top 10 and won Warwick her first Grammy. She told Ebony in 1983 that it was a dumb song she did not want to sing. She has performed it ever since. San Jose has since become much easier to find.

  3. A city street corner with a vintage street sign post and an old jukebox glowing in a diner window.

    08. Kansas City

    Wilbert Harrison · 1959

    Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller wrote it in 1952, and Harrison's version went to No. 1 seven years later. It has been recorded by everyone from Little Richard to the Beatles. It promises nice women and a specific street corner, which is about all a tourist board can ask.

  4. A small Las Vegas wedding chapel with neon lights, a pair of dice and a rhinestone microphone.

    07. Viva Las Vegas

    Elvis Presley · 1964

    Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman wrote it for the Elvis movie with Ann-Margret, and it peaked at a modest No. 29. It has since become the unofficial sound of every Vegas wedding chapel. Elvis later spent years in residency there, so it was also a forecast.

  5. A concrete freeway underpass in Los Angeles with palm trees beyond and a notebook on the ground.

    06. Under the Bridge

    Red Hot Chili Peppers · 1991

    Anthony Kiedis wrote it as a private poem about loneliness in Los Angeles, and Rick Rubin found it in his notebook and talked him into singing it. It reached No. 2 on the Hot 100. A funk-punk band's most sincere moment became its biggest hit.

  6. A neon-lit Beale Street at night with an upright piano on the sidewalk and blue suede shoes beside it.

    05. Walking in Memphis

    Marc Cohn · 1991

    A New Yorker's pilgrimage through Beale Street, Graceland and a Sunday gospel service, played on a piano that sounds like it already lives there. It went top 20 and won Cohn the Grammy for Best New Artist. Cher covered it, which is how you know it worked.

  7. Cable car tracks climbing a steep San Francisco hill in fog, the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance.

    04. I Left My Heart in San Francisco

    Tony Bennett · 1962

    Written in 1953 in Brooklyn, released as a B-side, and only a hit because DJs flipped the record over. It won Record of the Year and in 1984 became one of San Francisco's two official anthems. The city's song was written by two guys in New York.

  8. The Empire State Building at night seen from a Brooklyn rooftop, a grand piano on the roof.

    03. Empire State of Mind

    Jay-Z and Alicia Keys · 2009

    Two Brooklyn songwriters, Angela Hunte and Janet Sewell-Ulepic, wrote it while homesick in London. Jay-Z recorded it the night he heard it, and it spent five weeks at No. 1, his first as lead artist. The best New York song was written in London.

  9. A smashed bass guitar on a stage floor with an old wartime radio set beside it and a flooded London street behind.

    02. London Calling

    The Clash · 1979

    The title borrows the BBC World Service's wartime station identification, and the song is a list of ways London might end: floods, nuclear error, police. The album cover is Paul Simonon smashing his bass. A city anthem that is mostly a disaster forecast.

  10. A London railway station and river at sunset, a footbridge over the Thames and a train pulling away.

    01. Waterloo Sunset

    The Kinks · 1967

    Ray Davies first called it Liverpool Sunset, then dropped the idea after the Beatles released Penny Lane and wrote about the London station instead. It hit No. 2 in the UK and did not chart in America at all. Robert Christgau called it the most beautiful song in English.

Honorable mentions

  • A minaret skyline over the Bosphorus with an old street sign crossed out and a new one beside it.

    Istanbul (Not Constantinople)

    They Might Be Giants · 1990

    A 1953 Four Lads novelty about a city renaming itself, revived by They Might Be Giants on Flood. A rare city song that is mostly about municipal paperwork. It made a generation of kids better at history than their teachers expected.

Dishonorable mentions

  • A city skyline made entirely of stacked speakers and electric guitars on an empty plain.

    We Built This City

    Starship · 1985

    A No. 1 hit about a city that does not exist, built on a genre, co-written by Bernie Taupin. Blender magazine named it the worst song ever in 2004. Every other song on this list at least picked a real place.

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