Sweet Home Alabama-Lynyrd Skynyrd
Alabama-Neil Young
Alabama Getaway-The Grateful Dead
Alabama Song-The Doors
The Three Great Alabama Icons
The Boys From Alabama-Both by Drive-By Truckers who also have a live album titled “Alabama Ass Whuppin’”.
Stars Fell On Alabama-Recorded by many different artists.
There are many other songs which reference Alabama or cities like Birmingham, Montgomery, Mobile, etc. These were the first ones I thought of with “Alabama” in the title.
I’m from Connecticut originally and I can’t come up with a reference. Such an awkward word.
Back Home Again in Indiana - performed here by Red Nichols and His Five Pennies (including Benny Goodman and Jack Teagarden). I would have posted the version by the Mound City Blue Blowers if I’d been able to find it.
Combined with your colonial history of taking in misfits unsuited to Massachusetts et al, y’all sound almost like an east coast, colonial proto-Texas. How’s it hangin’, little bro?
You can end this thread now. New York State has the least number of songs written about it.
Hear me out … almost every reference to “New York” in a song is to New York City. As far as general songs that are either reference New York State or are about the state in general that aren’t NYC-specific, there just aren’t any, except for the commercial-friendly I love New York. Besides, everybody associates that song with the city.
Corollary? Try to find a travel book about New York State. They’re quite uncommon, even compared to much smaller, less prominent states.
Years ago, I was struck by the lovely little town of Nyack:
Or you could Shuffle Off to Buffalo. I agree that it’s not fair. Of course NYC is amazing place. But New York is a beautiful State. And so very different from Texas…
Where we had Doug Sahm–who gave us Texas Me,At The Crossroads, Beautiful Texas Sunshine–& made Is Anybody Going to San Antone his own. (I could keep going.)
Bob Wills & the Texas Playboys did [a song about San Antonio](YouTube? v=Mw2k8VfX83o), too; he’s another one who had Texas in most of his songs–even though his conflict with Pappy O’Daniel made him flee to Tulsa. How about Ernest Tubb, waltzing across Texas?
In modern days, Steve Earle wrote Fort Worth Blues about Townes van Zandt. On a less sublime note, Ray Wiley Hubbard (from Oklahoma) gave us Screw You, We’re From Texas–just when he’d begun to live down writing “Up Against The Wall, Redneck Mother.”
We’re not all rednecks; Valerio Longoria does the multiethnic thing with Texas Polka. Don’t know that Lightnin’ Hopkins mentions Texas inthis tune—but it’s about picking cotton in Texas. Of course he decided to head to Houston & find a better way to earn a living–joining the distinguished group of Texas Bluesmen. We’ve also had a bunch of rap & hip-hop coming out of Houston. Not my area of expertise–just check out YouTube!
We’ve had an mild winter & an early Spring down here–which might mean a Hotter Than Usual Summer. Bringing me dreams of visiting a beautiful green state with lovely lakes…
Indirectly, “Sweet Baby James”:
Now the first of December was covered with snow
and so was the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston.
Though the Berkshires seemed dreamlike on account of that frosting,
with ten miles behind me and ten thousand more to go.
Scary innit?
Wyoming, perhaps?
You’re probably right.
Rockapella did a song called “Indiana” on the “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego” album. It’s pretty catchy.
This could be the Massachusetts state song.
Also, “Sweet Rhode Island Red” by Ike & Tina Turner.
There was a 1946 song called simply “Connecticut” recorded by the Modernaires, Artie Shaw and Martha Tilton at the time.
Also “Connie’s Got Connections in Connecticut”, recorded by Frank Crumit for Decca in 1938.
Quite a few early country artists recorded songs about Wyoming in the 20s and 30s–“I Was Born in Old Wyoming”, “Wyoming Cowboy”, etc.
A song straightforwardly entitled “Massachusetts” was recorded by the Gene Krupa and Johnny Long orchestras in 1942, as well as the Andrews Sisters.
But yeah, I really can’t come up with anything strictly about New York state, other than the state song itself.
I’m gonna call the Mayor of Providence and ask him to make that the state song!
Fruit basket:
Empty basket that looks full:
This one took place in MA, I learned it in school;
“In '75 on an April night, the air was cloudy and the moon shone bright, to alert and to alarm, every villiage and every farm, and the men to call to arms, was the ride of Paul Revere”.
“Ride ride though the night be old, ride ride till the truth be told, ride ride like that man of old, the ride of Paul Revere”.
Those words are from memory though.
It was a nice catchy tune.
Not that I’m any kind of music guru, but the only song about Vermont I know of is Moonlight in Vermont.
Popular? By what metric? I only know of it because I remember a few years back there was a goings on about the Vermont State Song, for some reason, and how people thought it was Moonlight. Eventually, a whole new state song was written.
And I have never once heard it played at a Vermont wedding. Not the first song, last song, or any song in-between. Maybe it was played more in the 40’s/50’s/60’s, but certainly not anymore.
OK, I retract that statement after reading the lyrics. But there’s always this song from '37: