repost from
March 08, 2011 (a few of the songs now included were not in the original post) I haven't written much on music lately. my mind has been occupied by evil trumpian things.
Cities & States in Country Songs
There are many country songs that mention cities and states in the United States. I put together my first city/state cd about 7 years ago and called it USA, opening with Linda Ronstadt's cover of Chuck Berry's "Back in the USA". I'm fairly sure of the timeframe since I made it shortly after Tracy Lawrence released "Paint Me a Birmingham". OK, "Back in the USA" isn't really country but it rocks, it mentions 7 cities and 2 states and I love it. I'm about to create USA 2 so I'm looking for more city and state songs. Create your own USA playlist for your i-Pod or i-Tunes or burn a cd or two to play in the car if you're an old fogey like me.
The requirement for my USA playlist was only that the song mention the name of a city or state in the U.S. The name doesn't have to be used in the song title and doesn't have to be used as a noun. For example, a few songs talk about the L.A. freeway. The song qualifies if it uses a commonly known nickname for a city like the Big Apple, Big Easy, Windy City, etc. Album tracks not released as singles can be included. After the title of each song below, you'll find the artist, writers in parenthesis, and the cities or states mentioned in the lyrics other than those in the song title. Maybe I'll include a line or two of the lyrics or a comment or maybe nothing.
First up are some songs with no city or state name in the title:
"Everywhere" - Tim McGraw (Mike Reid & Craig Wiseman) He'll see her everywhere - Albuquerque, Arizona, Monterey, Georgia, Carolina, Oklahoma and Dallas, Texas.
"Goodnight" - Suzy Bogguss (Charlie Black & Dana Hunt) The chorus goes "So goodnight Raleigh, goodnight Durham, goodnight Atlanta and Macon and Jacksonville, live from high atop the hood of my car, I'm signing off, sweet dreams baby, wherever you are".
"Only in America" - Brooks & Dunn (Ronnie Rogers, Don Cook & Kix Brooks) Begins "Sun comin' up over New York City" and later "Sun goin' down on an L.A. freeway" and, finally, they may go "back to Oklahoma". The video was made in 2001 but prior to 9/11 so it has the World Trade Center.
"40 Hour Week" - Alabama (Don Schlitz, Lisa Silver & Dave Loggins) Hello Detroit auto worker, Pittsburgh steel mill worker, Kansas wheat field worker, West Virginia coal miner.
"Gone Country" - Alan Jackson (Bob McDill) mentions Vegas, Nashville, LONG ISLAND (my home for 60 years) and L.A.
"Bruises" - Train with Ashley Monroe (Pat Monahan, Espen Lind & Amund Bjorklund) "she's in QUEENS (the NYC part of Long Island) with the man of her dreams".
"You're not alone in how you've been
Everybody loses
We all got bruises"
Everybody loses
We all got bruises"
"Back in the USA" - Linda Ronstadt (Chuck Berry) a tour of the country - New York, Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, Chattanooga, Baton Rouge, St. Lou, California and the Delaware Bay.
"Station On the Line" - written and sung by Gary Burr. "She rode from New York to California, and I was just a station on that line".
"In Front of the Alamo" - Hal Ketchum with Leann Rimes (Gary Burr). "In the fading light of a Texas day, San Antonio, through the windshield of a Chevrolet."
"Daddy's Oldsmobile" - Hal Ketchum (David Mallett & HK) "Daddy says there's work in San Antone".
"Take Me Home Country Roads" - John Denver (JD with the Danoffs, Bill & Taffy) "Almost heaven, West Virginia".
"Up North" (Down South, Back East, Out West) - Wade Hayes (Jill Wood & Danny Wells) Independence, Kansas, Windy City, Miami, Virginia, Arizona.
The following songs include a city or state name in the title and may also mention other cities or states:
"On a Bus to St. Cloud" - Trisha Yearwood (Gretchen Peters) Minnesota followed by "on a street in New York City", "on a cold L.A freeway" and "in a church in downtown New Orleans".
"Heads Carolina, Tails California" - Jo Dee Messina (Tim Nichols & Mark D. Sanders) "I've got people in Boston, ain't your daddy still in Des Moines?".
"Saturday Night in Toledo, Ohio" - John Denver (Randy Sparks) "is like being nowhere at all".
"Detroit City" - Bobby Bare (Danny Dill & Mel Tillis) he keeps singing "I wanna go home". Could be that he read Elmore Leonard's description of Detroit as "Cleveland without the glitter".
"Lubbock or Leave It" - Dixie Chicks (Mike Campbell, Martie McGuire, Natalie Maines & Emily Robison) The girls sing about Paris, Texas and Athens, Georgia but Lubbock, although part of the title, is not mentioned in the lyrics.
"All the Rage in Paris" - Derailers (Jim Lauderdale & D. Burgess) "we were all the rage in Paris, San Antonio to Dallas"... "Hardly had to cross the state line, Texas was our big time".
"Houston" - written and sung by Mary Chapin Carpenter. Mary mentions Texas, Mississippi, "Crescent City" - another name for New Orleans besides the "Big Easy" - New Orleans, Pontchartrain and "waiting on some Providence" (not the city).
"Houston" - Phil Vassar (Julie Wood & Phil Vassar) Texas. The chorus begins "Houston, we have a problem".
"Houston" - Larry Gatlin & the Gatlin Brothers (Larry Gatlin) "Houston means I'm one day closer to you".
"Houston Solution" - Ronnie Milsap (Don Schlitz & Paul Overstreet) "I can leave all these problems in Nashville behind, I've got a Houston solution in mind".
"Texas Plates" - Kellie Coffey (Brett James & Kellie Coffey) and Oklahoma girls.
"Amarillo By Morning" - George Strait (Terry Stafford & Paul Fraser) San Antone, Texas, Houston & Santa Fe. According to Wiki, although Terry Stafford is best know for his pop hit "Suspicion", he recorded "Amarillo By Morning" in 1973. It only made it to #31 on the country charts.
"Amarillo Sky" - Jason Aldean (William Kenneth Alphin, Rodney Clawson, Bart Pursley & John Rich) "He just takes the tractor another round, and pulls the plow across the ground, and sends up another prayer".
"She Came From Fort Worth" - Kathy Mattea (Pat Alger & Fred Koller) "her dreams were bigger than the Texas sky", "She's got a one way ticket on the next bus to Boulder" to see "a man from Colorado".
"Is Fort Worth Worth It" - Terri Clark (Tom Shapiro & Chris Waters) "In Austin here with me, ain't where you want to be" and "can that woman west of Dallas, make you forget about us".
"El Paso" - written and sung by Marty Robbins, this classic also mentions Texas and New Mexico.
"She's Still in Dallas" - writen and sung by Hal Ketchum. "I'm still in love, she's still in Dallas".
"Death and Texas" - written and sung by Don Schlitz, "only things for sure are death and Texas". The "Alamo" gets a mention.
"If You're Gonna Play in Texas (You Gotta Have a Fiddle in the Band)" - Alabama (Murray Kellun & Dan Mitchell) "That lead guitar is hot but not for a Louisiana man". They were putting on a show in Houston.
"Stars Over Texas" - Tracy Lawrence (Larry Boone, Paul Nelson & Tracy Lawrence)
"Texas Tornado" - Tracy Lawrence (Bobby Braddock) Amarillo, Atlanta
"God Blessed Texas" - Little Texas (Porter Howell & Brady Seals)
"Amy's Back in Austin" - Little Texas (Brady Seals & Stephen Allen Davis)
"Galveston", "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" (which mentions Albuquerque and Oklahoma) and "Wichita Lineman", all sung by Glen Campbell and written by Jimmy Webb.
"There Is No Arizona" - Jamie O'Neal (Lisa Drew, Jamie O'Neal & Shaye Smith) Sedona & Tombstone, the Grand Canyon and the Painted Desert.
"Things To Do In Wichita" - Mark Chesnutt (Bob Regan & Jimmy Ritchey) not much - read USA Today and watch reruns.
"You're Not in Kansas Anymore" - Jo Dee Messina (Tim Nichols & Zach Turner) mentions Wichita, L.A., California, Malibu, Hollywood
"The Day That She Left Tulsa" - Wade Hayes (Mark D. Sanders & Steve Diamond) How did she leave? "In a Chevy, in a hurry, in the pouring down rain".
"City of New Orleans" - Arlo Guthrie (Steve Goodman) "Illinois Central Monday morning rail" and "train pulls out of Kankakee".
"New Orleans" - Toby Keith (Bob DiPiero, Mark D. Sanders, Steve Seskind) "but that's another story".
"That's How I Got to Memphis" - Tom T. Hall (Tom T. Hall) "If you love somebody enough, you'll follow wherever they go, that's how I got to Memphis". (added on 7/12/16 after seeing Jeff Daniels sing it on the final episode of the HBO series, "The Newsroom")
"Wrong Side of Memphis" - Trisha Yearwood (Matraca Berg & Gary Harrison) heading to Nashville to "hear my name from the Opry stage".
"Maybe It Was Memphis" - Pam Tillis (Michael Anderson - written in 1984, a hit in 1992) Maybe it was hormones. Rated #1 by CU in their feature "400 Greatest Singles of the Nineties".
"Walking in Memphis" - Lonestar (Marc Cohn) "Saw the ghost of Elvis down on Union avenue".
"Nothin' Bout Memphis" - Trisha Yearwood (Jessi Alexander & Thomas Lee James) "all he sees is that muddy Mississippi and the ghost of Elvis".
"Sunday in Memphis" - Big House (Monty Byrom, David Neuhauser & Scott Hutchison) "and I'm down to my last prayer".
"Heart Like Memphis" - Carter Twins (Eric Daly, Lee Thomas Miller & Ashley Gorley) mentions Georgia, California, New Orleans, New York City and Carolina.
"Tennessee Waltz" - Anne Murray and many others (Pee Wee King - born Julius Frank Anthony Kuczynski - & Redd Stewart)
"Midnight in Montgomery" - Alan Jackson (Don Sampson & AJ) "on my way to Mobile for a big New Year's Eve show".
"Athens Grease" - Phil Vassar (Jerry Vandiver, Steve Mandile & Phil Vassar) Clark County, Georgia, home of "the red neck Picasso of the manual transmission".
"The Moon Over Georgia" - Shenandoah (Mark Narmore) love over money in Savannah and Atlanta.
"Paint Me a Birmingham" - Tracy Lawrence (Buck Moore & Gary Duffy) "Could you paint me back into her arms again?"
"Little Rock" - Collin Raye (Tom Douglas) great line - "Jesus would forgive but a daddy don't forget".
"Halley Came to Jackson" - written and sung by Mary Chapin Carpenter. "Now back then Jackson was a real small town". Mary read about author Eudora Welty’s being shown Halley’s comet by her father when she was an infant.
"Down in Mississippi (Up to No Good)" - Sugarland (Robert Hartley, Lisa Kay Simonton, Nettles, Bush & Hall)
"Mississippi" - David Nail (Scooter Carusoe, Dan Colehour & Chuck Leavell) snow in New York is compared to a "southern man's field of white" in the first verse.
"Down in Mary's Land" - written and sung by Mary Chapin Carpenter, "East of Virginia where a bay meets a river".
"Meet Me in Montana" - Marie Osmond & Dan Seals (Paul Davis) Tennessee, Hollywood. The writer is best known for his hits "I Go Crazy" and "Cool Night".
"The Coast of Colorado" - Skip Ewing (Skip & Max D. Barnes) he'll wait for his love "'til the seas take California and wash up on the Great Divide".
"The Beaches of Cheyenne" - Garth Brooks (Bryan Kennedy, Dan Roberts & Garth) Effects of a man's obsession with rodeo felt in Wyoming and California.
"Why Wyoming" - Kellie Coffey (Wayne Kirkpatrick & Kellie) Yeah, why? Tennessee, California, Oklahoma get a nod.
"All the Gold in California" - Larry Gatlin & the Gatlin Brothers (Larry Gatlin) "is in a bank in the middle of Beverly Hills in somebody else's name".
"Tacoma" - Caitlyn Smith (Caitlyn Smith & Bob DiPiero) also mentions Memphis, Tulsa, Mizzoula, Topeka, Cheyenne and Kansas City
"I’m burning your memory
One mile at a time
All the way to Tacoma
One mile at a time
All the way to Tacoma
By then I hope you'll be out of my mind"
"Mention My Name in Sheboygan" - Everly Brothers (Bob Hilliard, Sammy Mysels & Dick Sandford) "but please don't tell them where I am". Written in 1947, it sounds like it could be from the Roaring 20's or the Gay Nineties (the 1890's). A frantic pace for 1 minute and 48 seconds. Paducah is mentioned in verse 2 and Tacoma in the last verse.
This list is obviously not all inclusive but I'm running out of gas on this trip around the country and I'd hate to have to fill up in that California city I saw on the news last night where premium now sells for $4.99 a gallon so I would need "All the Gold in California" to pay. Long sentence. There's probably over a thousand country songs that mention U.S. cities and states. I'm sure that I've missed some songs that would be obvious choices to most country music fans. What are your favorites?
Comments