# Obscure places in songs that you have been to. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 8, 2018, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-places-in-songs-that-you-have-been-to/822638 "2018-10-08T02:53:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2018, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-places-in-songs-that-you-have-been-to/822638/61 "2018-10-08T20:30:10Z")
I’ve been to Lynchburg and Danville from the song [Wreck of the Old 97](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTme_J8re8M). Lynchburg was nicer IIRC. Also been to Rockingham County and Route 33 from the Old Crow Medicine Show song [Dixie Avenue](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCIKTlVxu3g). ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2018, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-places-in-songs-that-you-have-been-to/822638/62 "2018-10-08T20:43:25Z")
Johnny Horton sang “North To Alaska”, which mentioned crossing the Yukon River and a place “a little southeast of Nome”. Done the first and been to the second. There are several songs that mention Timbuktu. Done that. Toto mentions “Kilimanjaro rising like Olympus above the Serengeti”. Climbed partway up Kilimanjaro and also spent a week in the Serengeti. I’ve also heard the “wild dogs crying in the night”, although it was daytime. The Duprees sang about “see the pyramids along the Nile” in “You Belong To Me”. I’ve been there many times. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2018, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-places-in-songs-that-you-have-been-to/822638/63 "2018-10-08T21:03:20Z")
Like most Chicagoans, I’ve also driven on Lake Shore Drive. I’ve also danced on State Street, that great street (but not with my wife, not having one). I’ve driven the Ventura Highway in California, and visited Strawberry Fields in Central Park (not sure that one counts). I’ve been to Trader Vic’s, but alas did not have a Pina Coloda, nor was my hair anywhere near perfect. ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2018, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-places-in-songs-that-you-have-been-to/822638/64 "2018-10-08T21:16:01Z")
According to Google Maps I’m 18+ hours flying time from Tulsa Oklahoma [which seems a bit optimistic to me] so, allowing a bit of time to get to the airport, Customs and baggage I’m pretty much exactly where Gene Pitney was when he dumped his wife. ---
**Author:** ![smithsb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smithsb/32/12107_2.png) [@smithsb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smithsb)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2018, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-places-in-songs-that-you-have-been-to/822638/65 "2018-10-08T21:47:30Z")
Every town in Getting your kicks on Rt 66. Not obscure. Stockbridge, MA Alice’s Restaurant Lodi, NY heh heh, never actually stuck there but lived next town over in Ovid. Not the same Lodi as song but certainly obscure. Marrakesh Express by CSNY. Morocco, wonderful intense smells. And some death warmed over ones as well. Not obscure, just out of the way. For obscure - Bristol, PA “famous” in the song “Bristol Stomp” by The Dovells ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2018, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-places-in-songs-that-you-have-been-to/822638/66 "2018-10-08T22:00:51Z")
I’ve seen the sun set red over Copano bay, but wasn’t on the deck of a saltwater lady at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2018, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-places-in-songs-that-you-have-been-to/822638/67 "2018-10-08T22:13:22Z")
Paducah, Ky has been name-checked in several country songs, but most notably in the second verse of “Hooray for Hollywood.” ---
**Author:** ![Llama\_Llogophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2018, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-places-in-songs-that-you-have-been-to/822638/68 "2018-10-08T22:24:50Z")
“I’ve Been Everywhere” would be a good metric. Johnny Cash’s version is well known, though I prefer Hank Snow. The towns listed on the Cash version are as follows: Reno Chicago Fargo Minnesota Buffalo Toronto Winslow Sarasota Whichta Tulsa Ottowa Oklahoma Tampa Panama Mattua LaPaloma Bangor Baltimore Salvador Amarillo Tocapillo Pocotello Amperdllo Boston Charleston Dayton Louisiana Washington Houston Kingston Texarkana Monterey Fairaday Santa Fe Tollaperson Glen Rock Black Rock Little Rock Oskaloussa Tennessee Tinnesay Chickapee Spirit Lake Grand Lake Devil’s Lake Crater Lake Louisville Nashville Knoxville Omerback Shereville Jacksonville Waterville Costa Rock Richfield Springfield Bakersfield Shreveport Hakensack Cadallic Fond do Lac Davenport Idaho Jellico Argentina Diamondtina Pasadena Catalina Pittsburgh Parkersburg Gravelburg Colorado Ellisburg Rexburg Vicksburg Eldorado Larimore Adimore Habastock Chadanocka Shasta Nebraska Alaska Opalacka Baraboo Waterloo Kalamazoo Kansas City Souix City Cedar City Dodge City I’m at around 65% Another Hank Snow song with a town is “Duquesne, Pennsylvania”, but that only gets you one. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2018, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-places-in-songs-that-you-have-been-to/822638/69 "2018-10-08T22:56:33Z")
You did notice that the OP specified _obscure_ places, right? ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2018, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-places-in-songs-that-you-have-been-to/822638/70 "2018-10-08T22:56:55Z")
I’ve been to the California and New Jersey Lodis, but the Ohio one is a new one on me. Also been to Marrakesh, but not by train. My favorite place in Morocco, except for the seaside oyster beds. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2018, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-places-in-songs-that-you-have-been-to/822638/71 "2018-10-08T22:57:41Z")
Since I grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, I’ve been on all of the streets mentioned in Billy Joel’s “Big Man on Mulberry Street” - the titular Mulberry, Houston, Canal, Hester, and (last but not least) Grand, the street on which I actually lived. (Where I lived is actually a good dozen blocks or so away from the parts that Joel is really referring to, in Little Italy, which has now been mostly swallowed up by an expanding Chinatown. But I’ve certainly been to the actual parts that he’s referring to.) ---
**Author:** ![Iggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iggy/32/3364_2.png) [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2018, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-places-in-songs-that-you-have-been-to/822638/72 "2018-10-08T23:35:49Z")
I’ve been to both the Cumberland Gap and to Johnson City, Tennessee. It is most definitely not west to go from the former to the later. I was even born in Johnson City. Been to other not so obscure places mentioned in [Wagon Wheel](https://www.google.com/search?q=wagon+wheel+lyrics&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS800US800&oq=wagon+wheel+lyrics&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.4889j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) as well. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2018, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-places-in-songs-that-you-have-been-to/822638/73 "2018-10-08T23:44:57Z")
Me and Bobby McGee: “Somewhere up near Salinas, lord, I let him slip away…” Been there [Salinas, CA – seat of Monterey County, Steinbeck Country…] many times. ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2018, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-places-in-songs-that-you-have-been-to/822638/74 "2018-10-08T23:46:56Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > I’ve been to Broadway in Seattle, which Sir Mix-a-Lot has a posse on. I too have been on Broadway and every other place listed in the song - including the closed Taco Bell (which no longer exists) and, of course, Dick’s. I’ve been to La Isla Bonita (Ambergris Caye). ---
**Author:** ![ThisSpaceForRent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thisspaceforrent/32/345_2.png) [@ThisSpaceForRent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThisSpaceForRent)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2018, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-places-in-songs-that-you-have-been-to/822638/75 "2018-10-08T23:51:03Z")
I have been to MANY places in many songs… I followed the Grateful Dead for a long time and have definitely been to [ShakeDown Street](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lCMUkqpI7o) The only place in a song I have ever sought out to find, and explore is Paradise KY…I have been to every place mentioned in the song, sans the original Paradise. It is now a power plant; coal fired! [**Paradise** , by _ **John Prine** _](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEy6EuZp9IY) ---
**Author:** ![Pork\_Rind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pork_rind/32/111_2.png) [@Pork\_Rind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pork_Rind)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2018, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-places-in-songs-that-you-have-been-to/822638/76 "2018-10-08T23:56:29Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > I think you might be mistaken about this. > > \*Pulling out of **San Pedro** late one night > With the moon and the stars just shining bright > We was headed up **grapevine Hill** > Passing cars like they was standing still > \* > > Southern California. [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Rod_Lincoln) says he changed the location in the lyrics to be a better fit for the song to be a response to the song _Hot Rod Race_, but the actual race between the writer (in his Lincoln) and his friend in the Cadillac was indeed up the Spiral Highway. Here’s my obscure location from an equally (or more?) obscure song. _St. Francis Dam Disaster_ by Frank Black (aka Black Francis of the Pixies) tells the story of the [1928 dam collapse and flood](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Francis_Dam) that killed 400 or more people from the Santa Clarita valley in Californa all the way down to Ventura where the Santa Clara river meets the Pacific. The dam failure ruined what was left of William Mulholland’s career and was mentioned as part of the water wars in the movie _Chinatown_. I was just there a few weeks ago, standing on the remains of the “[tombstone](https://medium.californiasun.co/st-francis-dam-collapse-6a0e1398fbee)”, the center section of the dam that was still standing after the collapse. After a kid tried to climb the tombstone section, then fell and died, they blew it up and only a rubble pile remains. Plus scars on the hillside where the dam met the terrain and where the flood scoured the rock away. [Song with video made from annotated photography from the period.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyRKUIm_74E) [The site as I found it…](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/St._Francis_Dam_base_remains_tkksummers.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2018, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-places-in-songs-that-you-have-been-to/822638/77 "2018-10-08T23:57:58Z")
> [@amarinth](#): > > I too have been on Broadway and every other place listed in the song - including the closed Taco Bell (which no longer exists) and, of course, Dick’s. Same here…often at 2AM…back in the day. Oddly enough I can’t even find an online version of “I Hang My Hat in Ballard” by Stan Boreson ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2018, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-places-in-songs-that-you-have-been-to/822638/78 "2018-10-09T00:02:15Z")
Just like the song, I have never been to Fairbanks Alaska. I have been to Lincoln (the other place mentioned in the song), but not golfing. And I have not been everywhere else, but I am working on that (it is taking longer than I thought). > [@robby](#): > > One of my favorite Eagles songs is [“The Last Resort”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Resort_(Eagles_song)) from the _Hotel California_ album. > > Growing up, I had only a vague sense where Rhode Island actually was (i.e. one of the many, small, mish-mash of states in the Northeast), so was somewhat bemused when the Navy later sent me there for a duty assignment for a few years. One day the song came on, and I suddenly realized I was driving at that moment in Providence, the one in Rhode Island. Did you ever make it to Lahaina? ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2018, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-places-in-songs-that-you-have-been-to/822638/79 "2018-10-09T00:43:21Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > I’ve been to the California and New Jersey Lodis, but the Ohio one is a new one on me. But don’t you want to get stuck in the Lodi in Wisconsin? I mean, they have[… ummm … a duck.](https://lauriekutilportraits.com/2015/08/13/lodi-home-of-susie-the-duck/) ---
**Author:** ![Onthefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9de053/32.png) [@Onthefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onthefly)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2018, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-places-in-songs-that-you-have-been-to/822638/80 "2018-10-09T01:09:30Z")
I’ve been to the Bowery, Peaches Corner, and The Magic Attic. All are referenced in Alabama’s Dancing (Shagging on the Boulevard). I’ve also been on Ocean Blvd. All are in Myrtle Beach, SC. I can’t remember any other places in the song, but, due to a misspent youth, I’ve probably been to them, too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-places-in-songs-that-you-have-been-to/822638.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-places-in-songs-that-you-have-been-to/822638.md?page=5)