# Songs badmouthing your state or city

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-badmouthing-your-state-or-city/358216>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [May 25, 2006, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-badmouthing-your-state-or-city/358216 "2006-05-25T18:05:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\
**Post date:** [June 3, 2006, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-badmouthing-your-state-or-city/358216/41 "2006-06-03T04:25:46Z")

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I grew up 55 miles south of Toledo. There’s a song by John Denver called “Saturday night in Toledo, Ohio.” Google on the first line “Saturday night in Toledo, Ohio is like being nowhere at all” for the complete words.

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**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\
**Post date:** [June 3, 2006, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-badmouthing-your-state-or-city/358216/42 "2006-06-03T04:36:07Z")

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As made popular by Elvis…

> [@](#):
>
> As the snow flies  
> On a cold and gray Chicago mornin’  
> A poor little baby child is born  
> In the ghetto  
> And his mama cries  
> ‘Cause if theres one thing that she dont need  
> Its another hungry mouth to feed  
> In the ghetto  
> […]  
> As her young man dies,  
> On a cold and gray Chicago mornin’  
> Another little baby child is born  
> In the ghetto

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**Author:** ![InternetLegend](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/internetlegend/32/13154_2.png) [@InternetLegend](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InternetLegend)\
**Post date:** [June 3, 2006, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-badmouthing-your-state-or-city/358216/43 "2006-06-03T04:55:06Z")

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Neil Young’s “Albuquerque” doesn’t exactly speak ill of the place, but it’s certainly not complimentary, either (“They say Santa Fe is less than ninety miles away/And I got time to roll a number and rent a car”).

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**Author:** ![Queen\_Tonya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/4491bb/32.png) [@Queen\_Tonya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Queen_Tonya)\
**Post date:** [June 3, 2006, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-badmouthing-your-state-or-city/358216/44 "2006-06-03T05:45:52Z")

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Does every mention of Mo-town count? Many of them are complimentary, so maybe not, but there’s way too many songs that use that nickname to count.

Rancid has a song called Detroit who’s chorus includes “I gotta good feeling in a bad city tonight” and talks about being mugged and detained illegally with a drunken priest and a hooker, that’s good for tourism.

Dozens of country singers have covered an ode to homesickness about being stuck in Detroit:  
“My kinfolks think I’m big in Detroit City  
From all the letters that I write they think I’m fine  
By day I make the cars but by night I make all the bars  
Oh if only they’d just read between the lines  
But now I wanna go home I wanna go home  
Oh how I wanna go home”

Kid Rock and Eminem both seem proud to be from a city they’re simultaneously ashamed by, go figure. Makes sense, since we’re sorta conflicted about a lot of homegrown stars too. It’s like “Yay, we were Motown!” but “Oooh, sorry bout that Nugent/Kiss/Alice Cooper/whomever thing we foisted off on the rest of y’all.”

A lot of rappers rap about just how badassed they are for being from here, I particularly liked this line “In Detroit, you’ll be lucky if your not a victim of a shooting. In Detroit, crack-head zombies still prostituting.” in one by Esham. 😃

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