Mention of Salford immediately brings to mind its bard, John Cooper Clarke, and his epic poem-song Beazley Street, also about Salford, backed by the Invisible Girls. It makes Dirty Old Town seem like a tourism promo.
“Lodi” by CCR and “Memphis Blues Again” by Bob Dylan refer to being “stuck” in a city – Lodi, CA for the former; Mobile, AL for the latter.
I suppose the Pretenders’ “My City Was Gone” qualifies – about how Ohio had changed for the worse. But at least it had been nice before.
I never heard that one. It’s not in my “Complete Tom Lehrer” CD set.
Randy Newman (who doesn’t really have much nice to say about anywhere) also sang “Burn On”, about Cleveland and its lovely Cuyahoga River:
I’m having a Plate O’ Shrimp moment here. Last night I just randomly remembered seeing that on SNL as a little kid and was wondering if it was a fever dream.
Gram Parsons wrote songs about LA, New York and Las Vegas, and they are all not very flattering for the respective city.
Lehrer graduated from Harvard in 1946 - the same year this posthumous George Gershwin song was published. (There must have been something in the air…)
There’s a hole in the world like a great black pit
and the vermin of the world inhabit it
and its morals aren’t worth what a pig could spit
and it goes by the name of London.
Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run.
Though he doesn’t name the town. It is pretty much about his hometown, Freehold, NJ.
If we’re on Springsteen, there’s absolutely nothing in the song that makes you want to visit, much less be Born in, the USA.
And then there’s a song about the South that makes you want to stay the absolute fuck away: Strange Fruit
The specific place is unspecified, because the intent is presumably generically anywhere people grew up that they wanted to escape, but “My Little Town” by Simon and Garfunkel is pretty devastating:
In my little town
…
Nothing but the dead and dying back in my little town
Nothing but the dead and dying back in my little town
…
Really nothing but the dead and dying back in my little town
Nothing but the dead and dying back in my little town
This one’s none too kind to Philadelphia:
Mississippi. As performed on TW3
Possibly NSFW. It contains racist words, and blackface in order to oppose racism.
Uncle Tupelo - “Sauget Wind”
(Sauget IL is an industrial town across the river from St Louis)
This song was the one that actually inspired the thread but I decided to leave it out since it’s a fictional account and not really a dis to Chicago.
@CairoCarol, Lyrics are usually copyrighted. Please don’t quote more than a small bit.
Moderating:
I’ve been to Sauget. It is in fact a hole. That cover art is not in Sauget. That is all.