Songs that use city names as a rhyme (and is there one for every state?)

From the Guess Who’s “Running Back to Saskatoon”, they rhyme “running back to Saskatoon” with “sing another prairie tune”.

I fell in love again
All things go, all things go
Drove to Chicago
All things know, all things know

  • Sufjan Stevens, “Chicago”.

Technically, I guess “Go” is rhyming with “Know” although Chicago rhymes with both (in a song lyric sort of way).

Mobile

From Natchez to Mobile, from Memphis to St. Joe
Wherever the four winds blow

For New Jersey, we have “I’m From New Jersey”. The songwriter is Red Mascara, who just passed away. He rhymes Cape May with “steal your heart away”.

The Everly Brothers - “Bowling Green”

I’ve got a Gal in Kalamazoo
(Oh, what a gal, a real pipperoo)

I’ve been racking my brain to try to come up with a Tennessee city/town that qualifies. I’ve been all over the South but it finally hit me: several TN towns get mentioned and at least one rhymes in Robert Mitchum sings The Ballad of Thunder Road – many Kentucky towns get mentioned, too, but Maynardville is in Tennessee! :smiley:

Mt first thought was “A little bit south of Saskatoon” which has room, June, soon, and honeymoon in different verses.

“I’m proud to be an Okie from Muskogee.” (Oklahoma)

“Well I was born the coal miner’s daughter
In a cabin on a hill in Butcher Holler.” (Tennessee)

Good catch, Chefguy, because I thought that was either fictitious or in Kentucky.

Has anybody got one for Mississippi, yet?

I just remembered that “Shuffle Off to Buffalo” also rhymes Reno, Nevada.
“When she knows as much as we know
She’ll be on her way to Reno
While he still has dough
She’ll give him the Shuffle
When they’re back from Buffalo”

George M. Cohan’s “Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway” mentions New Rochelle, NY
“If you want to see The real jay delegation,
The place where the Real rubens dwell.
Just hop on a train At the Grand Central Station.
Get off when they shout “New Rochelle.””

“Just a city boy, born and raised in south Detroit…”

Abilene, Abilene
Prettiest town I’ve ever seen.
Women there don’t treat you mean
In Abilene, my Abilene.

From thirty thousand feet above
The desert floor, I see it there below
A city with a legend -
The west Texas city of El Paso.

Big D, little a, double l, a s, and
Big D, little a, double l, a
That spells Dallas, where every home’s a palace
'cause the settlers settle for no less.

Plus two parodies (and no doubt others):

“Hippie From Olema” (California) which is a terrible rhyme and not an actual city, so let’s skip it.

“A**hole from El Paso” (Texas)

Back To Tupelo - Mark Knopfler

Porch Swing in Tupelo - Elton John (!)

Side issue: Which Jackson are Johnny and June singing about in this one?

Tennessee or Mississippi or what?

Yakko’s America has several.
I counted :

  • Austin/ Boston
  • D.C. / Tenassee
  • Pierre/ Delaware
  • Fall/ St. Paul
  • join/ Des Moines
  • Oklahoma and its city/ Carson City.

And of course, everybody remembers this one:

“I’ve got people in Boston, ain’t your daddy still in Des Moines
We can pack tomorrow, tonight let’s flip a coin”

Heads Carolina, Tails California by Jo Dee Messina

From All My Exes Live in Texas, sung by George Strait:

Rosanna’s down in Texarkana
wanted me to push her broom.
And sweet Eileen’s in Abilene,
she forgot I hung the moon.
And Allison in Galveston
somehow lost her sanity.
And Dimples who now lives in Temple’s
got the law lookin’ for me.