Sorry for the mansplain. I was responding to your “???” after the selection of “YYZ” for Toronto, which only made sense to me as “What has one got to do with the other?”
FWIW, “YYZ” was introduced to me simply as “the one where Neil Peart quintuplets on the bass drum.”
No worries… as long as you agree to pronounce it “Why-Why- ZED”!
Frankly, all the songs about Austin suck.
Tacocat - F.U. #8, about Seattle’s crappy bus routes.
Sir Mix A Lot - Posse on Broadway, about cruising Seattle’s Capitol Hill.
Judy Garland - San Francisco
Not many songs about Maryland.
Maryland, my Maryland
Crabs for Christmas is kind of cute although I don’t really like that singing style.
Ian Tyson’s “Summer Wages” mentions Vancouver, in particular “all the beer parlours, all down along Main Street”. Any West Coast Canadian my age will remember it from his tv show in the ‘70’s.
Vancouver gets a shout out in a few other songs too. Trooper, who are actually local, mentions ‘this rainy city’ in “Here For A Good Time”.
Of course back in the early Seventies, transplanted Aussie Rolf Harris immortalized is with “Vancouver Town” and “Vancouver Town ‘73”.
To the best of my knowledge, there are no actual songs about Surrey, which is probably a good thing. Surrey is Vancouver’s trashy little sister, that nobody wants to hang out with, but you do, because she’s cheap and easy!
Ok, I wrote and have performed “The Surrey Song” at Open Mic, but it’s never been recorded…I hope!
“They’re shootin’ in Newton
Brawlin’ in Whalley
In Fleetwood, they’re looking to fight
In Strawberry Hill
They’re stabbin’ for thrills
There’ll be bloodshed
In Surrey
Tonight!
For the first time on SDMB, I’m gonna actually reveal the small town in Central Texas where I live. There is actually a very popular song written about it. When the world-famous band that plays the song came to town a few years ago, there was a huge crowd to hear them perform it. Many of the old-timers in town were very upset that the county fair association invited this band (and paid their huge performance fee) because the subject-matter is somewhat of an embarrassment to some. However, the subject of the song was well-known in the town (long before I moved there or was old enough to understand such things).
Ladies and gentlemen, I give youZZTop.
I wonder how many people have heard that song a million times without realizing it’s dirty as hell (“I hear it’s tight…Most every night”)
No one would ever write a song about Oakville but it’s a suburb of Toronto, so I’ll take that.
I’ll go with “Crabbuckit” by k-os, with honorable mentions to “416/905” by Maestro and “Toronto #4” by The Tragically Hip. “Bobcaygeon,” also by the Hip, refers to Toronto but is less about it than, well, Bobcaygeon.
In our Lots of Songs category, Drake has dozens of Toronto-related songs, but I just can’t get into his music.
Not so fast… I give you… Cynical Bastards by Arkells!
My understanding is that the guitar intro riff also is the actual Morse code for “YYZ”.
There’s lots of songs referencing my city, but ‘Surfin’ USA’ by the Beach Boys is the only one I know of that specifically mentions my neighborhood. Of course the song references a few other places as well, but I’ll take what I can get!
As for our Chicago brethren, unless I missed it is there no love for ‘Sweet Home Chicago’? I’m kinda partial to the Blues Brothers version.
There are very few songs about my town, but this will do as a proxy.
There aren’t too many songs about Tucson. The closest I can get is the Beatles’ “Get Back,” although it’s not entirely about the Old Pueblo.
Jo Jo left his home in Tucson, Arizona for some California grass.
Kenny Chesney’s El Cerrito Place is set in southern California, not my home town in the Bay Area. I can see the bay from my front porch, so I’ll go with San Francisco Bay Blues.
Olympia, WA by Rancid.
Not exactly, the rhythm of the percussion, bass, and guitar are all based on the -.-- -.-- --… repeating pattern using an alternating tritone between F# and C.
Of course, if you are talking about songs that mention the state I live in, nothing is more New Jersey then Bruce Springsteen’s Jersey Girl, even if he didn’t write it.
In that case, John Pizzarelli’s “I Like Jersey Best” has to be the choice.