i may be a bird in a cage but at least it's your cage

Hurtin' Albertan - Corb Lund
Nevada City, California - Utah Phillips & Ani Difranco
Basin Street Blues - Dr. John (trad.)

maybes more later. kiss kiss. <3

1. "Viva Las Vegas," Elvis Presley - Is there anything better to get you all revved up for a vacation to Sin City?

2. "Springtime in New York," Jonathan Richman - Too cute for words.

3. "I Guess the Lord Must Be in New York City," Harry Nilsson - I just love his voice...and his sentimental-without-being-saccharine lyrics on this one.

4. "New York, New York," Ryan Adams - Released mere weeks after I moved to the city, it was the perfect thing to get me through those first few tough months.

5. "No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn," the Beastie Boys - Especially fun when it's late at night and you're drunk on the subway heading home.

1. "The Old Red Hills of Home", from Parade by Jason Robert Brown
Beautiful, haunting song of loss, love, hurt, pride, longing, return that transforms into a scary, march-step.

2. "Shenandoah"
But only if sung a capella without over-arrangement. Preferably by a solo voice without any vibrato. The simpler the presentation, the better. And the better, the more tears from me as I hear it.

3. "Whither Must I Wander?", Ralph Vaughn Williams's setting of Robert Louis Stevenson's poem
Fair the day shine as it shone on my childhood -
Fair shine the day on the house with open door;
Birds come and cry there and twitter in the chimney -
But I go for ever and come again no more.

4. "Mama, Look Sharp" from 1776
In the words of Booth from Sondheim's Assassins, "[this] is a role that I could never play."
If I have already broken down by the opening drum beats, I don't think I could get the notes out for the rest of the song about the meadow, maple tree, and tall grass of battlefield.

5. "Chrysanthemums Stopped Blooming", a Russian Romance (romances are like German lieder)
I can't do this song justice in English and without the music driving the lyrics, convoluted English structures are needed to translate the simple Russian construction, but suffice it to say:

there in the garden where we used to meet
where the chrysanthemums used to bloom
long has your absence been present
and the chrysanthemums have long past stopped blooming



Hmmm. Strange (or revealing) that all of the songs that initially came to my mind are haunting ruminations on the inability to return to a past place because of the importance of time in situating a memory of "place".

A few that come to mind right away:

1. "Valley Winter Song", Fountains of Wayne - about winter in my hometown: Hey Sweet Annie, don't take it so bad / you know summer's coming soon / though the interstate is choking under salt and dirty sand / and it seems the sun is hiding from the moon / Your daddy told you when you were young / the kind of things that come to those who wait / so give it a rest, girl / take a deep breath, girl / and meet me at the Bay State tonight

2. "In California", (covered by) Neko Case - In California, I dream of snow / and all the places we used to go / With the night falling down / with the night falling down / Now I'm living in Koreatown, waking to the sound of car alarms / [...] Another suicide on the 405 / the Black Dahlia, she smiles and smiles / It's the same old town that bled her dry / one more starlet one more time / bound to make it, do or die (This also works well as a Rodney song, post-Atlantis, when he's a professor at CalTech and is angsty over leaving John...)

3. "Mass Pike", The Get Up Kids - Last night on the Mass Pike / thought I was losing you / Last night on the Mass Pike / I fell in love with you

4. "Washington D.C.", The Magnetic Fields - Washington D.C., it's the greatest place to be / It's not the cherries everywhere in bloom / It's not the way they put folks on the Moon, no no no / It's not the spectacles and pageantry / the thousand things you've got to see / It's just that's where my baby waits for me

5. "Baby", (covered by) Os Mutantes - You know, it's time now to learn Portuguese / It's time now to learn what I know / and what I don't know... / It's time now to make up your mind / We live in the biggest city of South America / of South America

These are all very evocative songs for me, although with #s 3 and 5 it's got at least as much to do with the music and the context of the song as with the lyrics. (Okay, now I need someone to stop me before I put together a John & Rodney Post-Atlantis Road Trip Mix!)

You know that mine is going to be heavily U2-oriented, right?

• Where the Streets Have No Name - U2: about that place, where everything will be made right again. "The cities a flood and our love turns to rust/We're beaten and blown by the wind, trampled in dust/I'll show you a place high on a desert plain/Where the streets have no name" This is the ultimate live U2 song.


• City of Blinding Lights - U2: About New York, where I've never been, but love it because my Irish boys love it so much. "Oh! You! Look! So! Beauuuu-ti-fuuuul To-niiiiiight!


• Ohio - Over the Rhine: One of my favorite bands singing so beautifully about the joys and sorrows of growing up and loving/leaving a place. "Hello Ohio/The back roads/I know Ohio/Like the back of my hand/Alone Ohio/Where the river bends/And it's strange to see your story end"


• Graceland - Paul Simon: "But I've reason to believe/We all will be received/In Graceland"


• Istanbul, not Constantinople - the TMBG's version: Just 'cuz.


Runners up: U2 - In God's Country, Heartland, Bullet the Blue Sky, New York, Zoo Station, Playboy Mansion, Miss Sarajevo, Walk On, Stateless, The Wanderer (those last three about not being about to find a place...), James Taylor - Carolina in my Mind, Indigo Girls - Southland in the Springtime, Gladys Knight - Midnight Train to Georgia, Johnny Cash - Folsom Prison Blues, Dino Merlin - Sarajevo, Djordje Balasevic - Devedesete, Sufjan Stevens, all of Michigan and Illinoise.

Is that enough? :)

good call, that neko case song is fantastic.

1. about half of all extant lucinda williams songs, really, but let's go with "car wheels on a gravel road".
2. "oh my sweet carolina", ryan adams.
3. "bridges, squares", ted leo and the pharmacists. this is a song about urban planning that includes the words "apostasy" and "ossify", and really, what more do you need?
4. "this town is wrong", the nields. this might seem weird unless you happen to know that it's about growing up in the same suburbs where i grew up. they never let you learn how to crawl.
5. one from the past: "spring street", dar williams.

honorable mention to a whole lot of richard shindell songs; "america" by simon and garfunkel (also covered by richard shindell, hmm); and "fourth of july, asbury park" by springsteen, although i usually listen to covers of it (including, well, see above).

1. "viva portland" - chad crouch. It's such a happy song. Viva the skaters under the burnside bridge! Viva the kids swinging on the statue of the guy with the umbrella in pioneer courthouse square! Swing on, kids!
2. "viva sea-tac" - robyn hitchcock. I don't know if it's true, but sadly, I heard the song before I ever went to Seattle and now I visit and sing "they've got the best computers, coffee and smack!"
3. "rock star" - hole. Okay, I've never been to Olympia. Though I do hear they do all fuck the same.
4. "i remember california" - rem. And, rem nerd moment. My strongest association with this song is Peter Buck saying it wasn't *about* California because "very few people are in love with a plot of land." And I always think, no, Peter, you're wrong, because we do fall in love with cities and land and I hated Santa Barbara for many reason and love Portland for many reasons but some of it just bad chemistry. So, you know, shut up, Peter Buck.
5. "philadelphia freedom" - elton john. :)

I'm From New Jersey, John Gorka
Streets of Baltimore, Gram Parsons
Blue Earth, Jayhawks (Minnesota)
Memphis in the Meantime, John Hiatt
Dallas, the Flatlanders

1. L.A. County, Lyle Lovett - The song itself isn't about L.A., but chorus is more than enough for me: And the lights of L.A. County/Look like diamonds in the sky/When you're driving through the hours/With an old friend at your side

2. That's Right (You're Not From Texas), Lyle Lovett - I wish I had it on my computer or I'd put it up in a heartbeat; it's a fantastic song, with a horn section and pedal steel. More about how to be in Texas that Texas itself, but it definitely conjures up an image: That's right, you're not from Texas/But Texas wants you anyway...But at a dance hall down in Texas/That's the finest place to be/The women they all look beautiful/And their men will buy your beer for free

3.Graceland, definitely. I have to second that.

And hey, why not; let's have some fun.
4. Miami, Will Smith

5. Ocean Avenue, Yellowcard - I'm kind of embarrassed for liking this band, but there are times when I really like this band, and after this song finally grew on me I listened to their music nonstop for a week.

"Viva Sea-Tac" by Robyn Hitchcock -- The lyrics of this song crack me up. He hits every salient point about the city, like he's reading from a very snarky guide book. Not one of his "real" songs, but one of my favorites of his fake songs.

"Mr. Seigal" be Tom Waits -- No one can write a song about a place like Tom Waits. I heard him on Fresh Air once, saying all his favorite songs have lyrics about food and weather, because thats the only way he feels like the song is about something real. Anyway, this song is the one that reminds me every time I listen to it that Vegas is, in fact, in the middle of a desert wasteland.

"Eurotrash Girl" by Cracker -- Man, this is just the cities of Europe all over. When we went to Brussels, I couldn't stop humming this, and my husband kept elbowing me in the ribs to try and shut me up. Not that I don't think Brussels is awesome, because I do, but on my list of things that struck me about that city, "twenty-oear-olds with huge backpacks" would be near the top.

"Free Fallin'" by Tom Petty -- There are songs that are more about LA, but this one is exactly the amount of LA I need. Actually, that's not true. Every song by Everclear is also the exact amount of LA I need, but Tm Petty came first.

"Why We Don't Live in Mauritania (http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=02105A7F58F89D26)" by The Loud Family -- Another song about LA, but in a different way. It doesn't make me want to go there, for one thing. It's more about the idea of home, and how their home is California. You might like this one.

(wandering in from other people's friendslists because I don't want to be at work today)

Off the top of my head:

Joni Mitchell, "California" - I feel like there are lots of hers that I could just as easily pick, "Morning Morgantown", or "Free Man in Paris", although that's not really about Paris, or others that have a general sense of place for me without being about a place.

Eddie from Ohio, "Old Dominion" - I don't have any particular attachment to Virginia, but the Rocky Mountains are Blue Ridge wannabes, and it's so catchy! (Available for download on this page (http://www.archive.org/details/efo1998-07-21.shnf).)

Brad Yoder, "Taking in the Sights" or "Skyler" - both of these are totally country roads in the summertime. "Skyler" and "One Perfect Day" and some others can be downloaded from his website here (http://www.bradyoder.com/music/soundclips.html); there are lyrics to "Takin in the Sights" linked somewhere around there, too, with "I drive north on state road 9, that's the highway of Vice Presidents and "I've drunk a bit much Gatorade, ate a few too many Reese's, feels like I've got it made, though it all could fall to pieces..." A friend of mine in college complained that it sounded too much like the folk songs we would write if we started a band, and that she wanted to listen to people who were smarter than us, but it makes me happy.

The Standells, "Dirty Water" - (wow, there's a video up on Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/w/The-Standells---Dirty-Water?v=xHvWM9_5ogQ&search=standells). Of course there is. Wow, that was the sixties.) Because the Charles has now been declared "safe for swimming" 90% of the time, and because it makes Boston feel like home as much as anything else does.

And, oh! "Northwest Passage", by Stan Rogers - which stands for other places and has associations with other performers in my memory, but stands on its own just as well.

Double Theme!!
1. Ani D: Subdivision
white people are so scared of black people
they bulldoze out to the country
and put up houses on little loop-dee-loop streets
and while america gets its heart cut right out of its chest
the berlin wall still runs down main street
separating east side from west
2. Ani D: Every State Line
they made sure i wasn't smuggling
someone in from mexico
someone willing to settle for america
'cause there's nowhere else to go
3. Ani D: Hello Birmingham
it was just one shot
through the kitchen window
just one or two miles from here
if you fly like a crow
a bullet came to visit a doctor
in his one safe place
4. Ani D: Coming Up
but i love this city, this state
this country is too large
and whoever's in charge up there
had better take the elevator down
and put more than change in our cup
or else we
are coming
up
5. Ani D: The Diner
i miss listening
to you in the bathroom
flushing the toilet
blowing your nose

5. "Tangled Up in Blue." (Believe it or not, Montague Street is actually in New York, not New Orleans.)

4. "My Old Kentucky Home." With best wishes to Barbaro.

3. "Red Dirt Road." It's not often I include Brooks & Dunn into a Top Five list. It's a worthy addition here, tho.

2. "Small Town." I know his Bloomington. It's a good place.

1. "Oklahoma." As much as every Sooner kinda can't stand this song, we also secretly love it. You really are doing fine, Oklahoma.

Copen-ha-gen! I love that song.

1. Carolina in my Mind, James Taylor. duh.
2. Hotel California, The Eagles. duh, take two.
3. Sitting on the Dock of the Bay, Otis Redding. Literal place, not a city/state/etc. Ah, the beach.
4. The "in Chapel Hill it's raining" song which I can't find the title of for the life of me.
5. California Dreamin' (techno version). *happy sigh*

Obviously I'm a Carolina/California girl with some ocean tendencies. hee!