Entertainment For Lively Minds
Hometown Songs ....
Posted by macphails on 1 September 2009 - 8:36pm.
My Music Night has come around again! This time I am looking for songs written and performed by artists on the theme of their Hometown.
I have a slight leaning towards Roots/Americana for want of a better description!
Any suggestions?
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Clive Gregson
I Love This Town. The Nanci Griffith version is good.
Tom & Jerry
or Simon & Garfunkel if you prefer: My Little Town. Quite caustic lyrics.
I realise I may be interpreting your request somewhat literally, but Springsteen's 'My Hometown' also seems to fit...
Chris Rea
Stainsby Girls
Named after a (long-gone) Middlesbrough school
I originally come from the town eulogized...
... in this song...
I fear though, that the one below more accurately expresses my own feelings for the place...
I wonder if
our paths ever crossed Mr. Sprocket, I worked for the development corporation from 85-89 and as much as I disliked the town I met a lot of great people and had some fantastic times. As for NLC, I couldn't possibly comment. :(
My entry is A Walk Across the Rooftops and Hats, maybe they aren't about Glasgow but they are to me.
The Blue (West) Nile (Street)
Me too. I've always associated those albums with Glasgow - particularly the West End. Tinseltown in the Rain especially - I s'pose the clue's in the last word...
we won't mention
that other Glasgow band named after a Steely Dan tune :innocent/whistles:
Bodhisattva?
Some more bad Glasgow / Blue Nile puns:
Headlights on Alexandra Parade
The Downtown Fights
er, that's it.
Hmmmm...
I have my doubts unless you ever did school visits of course.
However you may have seen me standing at the top of the escalators in the town center with the other hairy biker wannabes...
Messed up that post!
I was replying to Mr Blast up there ^^^^^^^^^
Cottaging
ever go to the Nod Theatre to see any bands?
I can only remember two local thrash metal acts I saw there.
One was called Limbic Disorder. The other was Hell, Death and Breakfast.
They weren't very good.
a confession:
I was the bass player in the 2nd band
it was HELL DEATH + BREAKFAST by the way LOL
Oh bugger!
When I say "weren't very good" I meant to add, "they were BRILLIANT!!"
Will now stop digging...
It's really okay
I thought we were crap too!
but it was a guid laff and no one got hurt, eh... except that wee guy who broke his leg at our first gig
At the risk of dissing the town of my birth...
a la John Hannah with his fancy high-falutin' London ways, I would suggest that the Jesus & Mary Chain's nihilistic, atonal howl was quite suitable for some areas of Polo Mint City, aka East Kilbride, where they were spawned.
Cumbernauld - meh!
Bill & Iris
Highly recommend "My Old Town" from Bill Morrissey's "North" album.
Or....
The very wonderful Iris Dement with "Our Town"
Green Green Grass of Home
Awaiting execution, a prisoner imagines himself home where there is the old oak tree he used to play on and the welcoming arms of his Sweet Mary. .... (sob)
What's not to like?
Although it wasnt about my town.....
Boulder to Birmingham.
If I cant have that one how about 'Shit on the Villa!!' (to the tune of roll out the barrel)?
well you could try
Hayes Carll, Little Rock
Drive By Truckers, The Southern Thing
Todd Snider, The Ballad of the Devil's Backbone Tavern
Hometown Blues
by Steve Earle.
If you can get the story before the song(found on Just An American Boy), it's fantastic! "Another Town" by Earle would also fit.
"This Dirty Little Town" by Kieran Kane is good (Dead Reckoning).
"Dirty Old Town" Ewan McColl or Pogues.
"Johnsburg, Illinois" Tom Waits (not his home town, but his wife's).
Obviously "My Hometown" by Springsteen.
"My Darlin' Hometown" by John Prine.
"Hometown Blues" by T-Bone Walker
"Hometown" by Terry Clark
"Hometown New Orleans" by Champion Jack Dupree
"My Hometown" by Whiskeytown.
"Lake Charles" by Lucinda Williams.
Croydon
By Captain Sensible. It's my hometown too so had to post this. (NB this isn't the 'proper' song - I couldn't find it - but there are some nice shots of the Whitgift Centre as it used to be)
Portsmouth - Joe Jackson's "Home Town"
a bit wistful but not too sentimental - which to me is about the right mixture.
Miranda Lambert - Famous in a Small Town
The song name checks "Turner Town" and she comes from Lindale, Texas but I understand it is about her and her hometown. Lyrics refer to being famous in Nashville which of course she is.
Check out the video for a mohican haired bass guitarist in a country band no less.
Are you discounting LA songs?
Because I suspect, with some thought, the massive could fill an evening with these.
For example.
Randy Newman - I Love LA
Beach Boys (numerous but) - California Girls
Jan & Dean - Dead Mans Curve
Flying Burritos - Sin City (Chris Hillman is from LA)
Mamas and Papas - California Dreaming (Michelle is co writer and was from LA)
and if you extend it to those who whilst born elsewhere permanently moved to LA then the list goes on.
There is a wiki page here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_about_Los_Angeles
which is by no means exhaustive.
Ride - OX4 - their Oxford postcode...
Oxford is about as close as I'd get to claiming a 'home city' - although I live out in the sticks now.
Wonderful!
I'm desperate to trade an excellent VHS to DVD transfer of Suede's Love and Poison for a good trans. of that Ride VHS with the Great White Shark on't.
Weller
the one where he goes "I know I come from Woking", can't remember the title but probably first or second album.
Also "Stanley Road".
He also mentions my current place of residence in "Eton Rifles".
Who can forget Swedish punks "Troublemakers" and their ode to "Göteborg"!
“I know I come from Woking…
… and you'll say I'm a fraud
But my heart's in the city where it belongs”
Sounds From The Street - 1st album
Woking
THE Town Called Malice.
Generic offering
Beautiful stuff...
Annandale-on-Hudson, New York
'My Old School' by the inestimably brilliant Steely Dan.
Roddy Frame
"Killermont Street"
Hometown Farewell Kiss
by The Triffids - about Perth burning down.
The Triffids – Calenture: http://open.spotify.com/album/7x8w5PGAFC1jUbvy0SE9M9
Not really about Liverpool, but I present it anyway
I love The Dubliners
Luke Kelly and Ronnie Drew were the best singers Ireland ever produced.
There is a town in North Ontario
Neil Young's "Helpless" ?
http://www.thrasherswheat.org/2009/03/there-is-town-in-north-ontario-roa...
Had wondered if my own hometowns of Poole (born), Dibden Purlieu (raised) and Southampton (schooled) had produced any songs, but The Google suggests not ... did bring forth the delightful news that one Greg Lake shares my place of birth, and that one Tony Blackburn lived there later on, and also produced this scene of a snowbound Dibden Purlieu ;-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dibden_Purlieu.jpg
jacksonville skyline
- ryan adams/whiskeytown - came up on the shuffle earlier today - rather good
A bit more obscure
Johannesburg - The Julian Laxton Band
Sunshine on Leith - the Proclaimers
While more of a love song to a person than a place, it has certainly been adopted with some enthusiasm by the locals.
Richard Hawley & Pulp
Most of Richard Hawley's excellent solo albums are heavily influenced by or about Sheffield - Coles Corner, Lady's Bridge, Trulove's Gutter.
Another son of Sheffield - Pulp... 'Wickerman' on We Love Life is about Sheffield.
Always wondered
why, with Coles Corner, the cover photo was in fact taken outside Scarborough's Stephen Joseph Theatere.
Jethro Tull
Blackpool. I have a soft spot for that one.
Would that be ...
... Up the 'Pool? Wonderful Song!
The Big Smoke, and beyond
Camden Town - Suggs
We Are London - Madness
London Belongs To Me - Saint Etienne
Only Living Boy In New Cross - Carter USM
LDN - Lily Allen
London Pride - Noel Coward
London Is The Place For Me - Lord Kitchener
Willesden to Cricklewood - Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros
London's Burning - The Clash
Guns Of Brixton - The Clash
Transmetropolitan - The Pogues
Rainy Night In Soho - The Pogues
Beyond :
I can't believe we've got this far without :
Waterfront - Simple Minds
Ashgrove - Dave Alvin (slightly tenuous, but great)
Downey Girl - Dave Alvin
Sisters (again)
War on Drugs (unreleased, they all are since Under the Gun, which was more or less a cover)
"Heading back to Kirkstall, in the shadow of the sun"
so that'll be Leeds ticked off
Leeds contd.
Kaiser Chiefs 'I Predict a Riot', obviously.
Also 'High Royds', about the former psychiatric hospital across the road from the Kaiser Chiefs' old school St Mary's (or St Fairies as it was known, to those like me who went to the school up the road). Contains the magnificent couplet: "Got keys to a car, Picked up a girl from Boston Spa."
Anytown, USA
The town I was born and raised in was immortalised in very chooglin' style by Creedence Clearwater Revival. Yup, Stuck In Lodi (Again). Allegedly based on their experience playing the Lodi High School Prom held in the American Legion Hall. And that goes a long way toward explaining why I now live in, well... Mark Ellen’s postcode.