Songs with a specific sense of place.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

Often, my favourite songs are ones that are redolent of a specific location, that give you a real sense of the place that inspired it. For me, David Bowie's 'Joe the Lion' is perfectly evocative of Berlin, while 'Watch that Man' is 1972 London to me. 'Waiting for the Man' by the Velvet Underground really gives me a sense of mid-60's New York. Certain songs are even more specific in their sense of space, such as Belle and Sebastian's 'Dylan in the Movies', which I can place to the handsome old townhouses at the north end of Glasgow's Kelvingrove Park. Most of their songs are evocative of Glasgow, given their obvious devotion to their hometown. Similarly, 'Ghost Town' by the Specials strikes me as being a particular housing estate in Coventry.
London and New York are obviously the most represented in pop culture. 'For Tomorrow' by Blur is a certain part of West London (and it is their finest song), while 'Clubland' by Elvis Costello is Soho. To me, New York is a song by Television or Sonic Youth, say 'Marquee Moon', while a part of New York's history is encapsulated in Aimee Mann's 'Fifty Years After the Fair'.
Songs that are named after cities, paradoxically, are often not particularly redolent of their subject. 'Berlin' by Lou Reed is a very New York Berlin. 'Vancouver' by Jeff Buckley is better, but it could easily be San Francisco. 'Tupelo' by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds is fantastic, but it's Berlin or London, not Mississippi.
Neil Finn's songs are, to me, massively redolent of New Zealand. Much of 'Together Alone' is a travelogue of that country to me, with 'Kare Kare' in particular capturing a sense of the majesty and distance of Aotearoa, that rugged individual (to quote an earlier songs).
What songs work for you in this way?

[Richardo]

1. "Dock of the Bay" comes to mind...

...almost immediately.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

3. Yeah. To me, nothing suggests the Northern Norweigan port of Narvik

like Otis Redding's soul classic.

[Richardo]

5. I always thought he was in Churchill Ontario...

...maybe it's not as evocative as I thought. ;-)

[Screaming Lord Byron]

6. Sitting on the dock of the bay

Watching the bears take my baby away
All I got's this damn sweater
And the hurdy-gurdy won't stop playing

Hot damn, these northern climes!
How'm gonna get out of Narvik?
I ain't built for this snow
So I guess I'll have to start shooting

Sitting on the dock of the bay
Shooting away, shooting away
Twelve dead Norweigans behind me
another six in the sea

[GOPisEvil]

2. LA Woman

I can't drive in SoCal without that song going through my head.

[Richardo]

4. good one!

As a long time resident of SoCal I concur...

[electricmonk]

7. Scuffletown by Avail

About Richmond Virginia. They sum it up pretty good.

There's kepone in the river
but the river's still flowing east
Ethyl dozed the planet
in an attempt to keep
the city clean
still it's a beautiful day
and the sun's still shining
over the James
Oregon Hill is at end time
VCU crept up and lit the torch
West Avenue honkies don't forget that
trains still run north
cause it's a beautiful day
and the sun's still shining
over the James
third per capita next year number 1

----
For the people that have never been there Ethyl is the company that invented anti-knock lead compounds for gas. Oregon Hill is/was a working class neighborhood that Va Commonwealth University gentrified. Haven't been there in awhile so I'm not sure how far along it is. And third per capita refrences the cities outrageous murder rate.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

8. A Fly on a Windshield conjurs up the dark and steamy hell of Manhattan

The way it is when you're tripping and its a humid September night

awesome!

[livetohike]

9. "Pali Gap" it's instrumental but

once you have seen it, then Hendrix' superb music fits. Also, "Georgia On My Mind", "Rocky Mountain High", and "Allentown".

[Magrittes Pipe]

10. Just about anything by Great Plains screams "Columbus" to me.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

11. Wouldn't that be more of a mutter?

[Magrittes Pipe]

12. Bite your tongue!

[Screaming Lord Byron]

13. kick.

I like this thread. I'm kicking it.

[Philostopher]

14. There are plenty, you're right.

Neil Young's 'Sugar Mountain' makes me think of small towns like the one I grew up in, in southern Ohio. I know it's probably about a Canadian small town, but likely it's supposed to evoke one like I grew up in.

Tom Cochrane's 'The Secret Is To Know When To Stop' actually calls specific places, and though I've never done the transcontinental across Canada, I've been from the east coast of the U.S. as far west as Deming, NM and can honestly say there are analogues to most of the references in 'Secret' everywhere in the U.S.

Though I'm not familiar with Halifax, I have sneaking suspicion Chris Murphy's tip of the hat to Television, 'Marquee And The Moon,' probably calls up quite distinct memories of a certain era in Halifax, NS -- and reminds me greatly of Corryville, in Cincinnati, up near the University of Cincinnati. As with 'Sugar Mountain,' I'm pretty sure that's what makes a good 'place song' -- the fact that it has the power to remind us of other places than were intended, and yet to powerfully call to those places for those who are familiar with them, as well. And 'Fire In The Hole' is about being 16 there. Word.

Oh, yeah -- and every single Ass Ponys song ever written is about Bethel, Ohio. I hung out with people in that town the same time Chuck Cleaver was growing up there (he's a couple of years younger, but probably had some of the same friends). 'Baby In A Jar' is being ten years old in Clermont County, Ohio every bit as much as 'Sugar Mountain' is being 18 in a small town in Canada.

[eyesroll]

15. I don't hear "Sweet Home Alabama" and think of Alabama,

but I do hear certain songs that I associate with where I was when I first heard them, or heard them ad nauseum.

Anything off of Afghan Whigs "Gentleman," I associate with a dorm room at Beloit College.

"Venus in Furs" -- a theater at that same college.

"Diz Knee Land" -- My old 1989 Nissan Sentra, driving between school and the mall at lunch.

"Let's Hear it for the Boy" -- Jewish camp, summer before 5th grade.

[Jack Rabbit]

16. Of course there are many fine songs about San Francisco

San Francisco is the center of the universe.

(Exception: Warm San Francisco Night, performed by Eric Burden and the Animals in the sixties. Anybody associated with that song obviously hasn't been any closer to San Francisco than Los Angeles.)

[XNASA]

17. "When the Levee Breaks" - Mississippi

Some songs are so obvious that it's best to ignore them (California Girls, etc.)

But WTLB just drips of being in Mississippi during one of those torrential Deep South rain storms. Every time I hear it that imagery is conjured up immediately.

As for my own hometown, I'd say anything by John Lee Hooker sounds like it was scraped up off of the street on the South Side. I can't hear say..."Boom Boom" without immediately thinking that I'm on East 43rd Street.

[SiouxJ]

18. U2's Joshua Tree and Robbie Robertson's Storyville

are the first two that come to mind.

I cannot hear anything off of JT without being instantly transformed to the Mojave Desert. Even if it weren't titled "JT" (the Mojave Desert is the only place where they grow), I would probably still have the same feeling. All the songs relate so well to that environment. I've heard that "One Tree Hill" is actually in New Zealand, but it easily could be a place out there in Mojave. To this day I still tend to put it on if I'm going on a drive through the desert.

Storyville of course is based on turn of the century New Orleans and it gives me a great sense of that place in time. It's very well done.



Great question!

[Screaming Lord Byron]

19. One Tree Hill is a hill on the south side of Auckland.

IIRC, it's about U2's roadie Greg Caroll (I'm going from memory, I may have the wrong name) a Kiwi who died in a motorbike accident after the Unforgettable Fire tour.

[SiouxJ]

20. Yeah, he was supposedly running an errand for Bono

if memory serves. Until I found that out, I always thought the song was about some place in Mojave. The imagery works so well there.