The World’s Most Musical Cities
Songs about London, New York City and Los Angeles, California
The urban lifestyle lends itself to songwriting. But where are hits such as Smoke On The Water, House of the Rising Sun, Common People and Dirty Old Town set?
The urban lifestyle and songwriting
The urban lifestyle is somewhat conducive to songwriting, and many of the world’s greatest pop, rock and hip-hop songs have name-checked cities or places in those cities. Some of these are ancient – Rivers of Babylon by Boney M, for example, while others may not be directly about a city, but are set there. House of the Rising Sun is set in New Orleans, Louisiana and Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple is about a fire in Montreux, Switzerland for example.
Some cities are better muses than others, though. Here are some of the most popular cities with songwriters, and just a selection of hit songs about them.
Hit songs about London, England
- London Calling – The Clash
- White Man In The Palais – The Clash
- Guns of Brixton – The Clash (OK, so the Clash could probably fill this category themselves…)
- Baker Street – Gerry Rafferty
- Streets of London – Ralph McTell
- Waterloo Sunset – The Kinks
- Common People – Pulp (about a student from St Martin’s College)
- I Don’t Want To Go To Chelsea – Elvis Costello
- LDN – Lily Allen
- Mack The Knife – Berthold Brecht and Kurt Weill
Hit songs about New York City, New York, United States
- New York, New York – Frank Sinatra
- Angel of Harlem – U2
- Englishman in New York - Sting
- Fairytale of New York – The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl
- Across 110th Street – Bobby Womack
- Jenny From The Block – Jennifer Lopez
- NYC – Interpol
- Spanish Harlem – Ben E King/ Aretha Franklin
Hit songs about Los Angeles, California, United States
- All I Wanna Do – Sheryl Crow
- Under The Bridge – Red Hot Chili Peppers
- Welcome To The Jungle – Guns N Roses
- Straight Outta Compton – N.W.A
- Paradise City – Guns N Roses
- Drinking In LA – Bran Van 3000
And a few unexpected ones…
- Fake Tales of San Francisco by Arctic Monkeys is actually about Sheffield and Rotherham, England.
- Dirty Old Town by The Pogues is about Salford in Manchester, England
- Tropical London by Rancid is about a girl from Melbourne, Australia
- Four Seasons In One Day by Crowded House is also about Melbourne – in particular its notoriously changeable weather.
- Copacabana by Barry Manilow isn’t about the famous beach in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil – it’s about the Copacabana nightclub in New York City.
- Rio by Duran Duran is also nothing to do with the city.
- The Dock of the Bay by Otis Redding isn’t about San Francisco, but Sausalito, California. Which is on the opposite side of the San Francisco Bay.
- Waterloo by ABBA is not about the famous train station in London, but the battlefield site in Waterloo, Belgium.
The copyright of the article The World’s Most Musical Cities in W Europe Travel is owned by David Whitley. Permission to republish The World’s Most Musical Cities must be granted by the author in writing.
