The Rules
- A song in this list must have the city name, or, even better, a specific part of the city in the title (sorry, “Under the Bridge” or “Dirty Water”; sorry, a dozen hip-hop songs that describe life in various projects).
- No regions, provinces, or states (sorry, “Midnight Train to Georgia”).
- Song cannot be crap (sorry, “San Francisco (Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)” and “MacArthur Park”).
London
The Clash “London Calling”
The Clash “(White Man in) Hammersmith Palais”
The Clash “Guns of Brixton”
Gerry Rafferty “Baker Street”
The Jam “Down in the Tube Station at Midnight”
The Jam “A” Bomb in Wardour Street
The Pet Shop Boys “West End Girls”
Basement Jaxx “I Live in Camberwell”
Eddy Grant “Electric Avenue”
The Kinks “Waterloo Sunset”
New York
Ryan Adams “New York, New York”
Frank Sinatra “New York, New York”
Beastie Boys “No Sleep Till Brooklyn”
Bob Dylan “Positively 4th Street”
Simon & Garfunkel “59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)”
Bobby Womack “Across 110th Street”
Joni Mitchell “Chelsea Morning”
Billy Joel “New York State of Mind”
Ben E. King “Spanish Harlem” (I prefer the Aretha Franklin version, actually)
Liverpool
The Beatles “Penny Lane”
The Beatles “Strawberry Fields Forever”
The Bangles “Going Down to Liverpool”
Philadelphia
Bruce Springsteen “Streets of Philadelphia”
Elton John “Philadelphia Freedom”
San Francisco
Tony Bennett “I Left My Heart in San Francisco”
Chicago
Paper Lace “The Night Chicago Died” (kitsch classic)
Cleveland
Ian Hunter “Cleveland Rocks”
Atlanta
Jermaine Dupri “Welcome to Atlanta”
Memphis
Marc Cohn “Walking in Memphis”
Montgomery, Ala.
John Prine “Angel From Montgomery”
Scarborough
Simon & Garfunkel “Scarborough Fair (Canticle)”
Bangkok
Murray Head “One Night in Bangkok”
Singapore
Tom Waits “Singapore”
Ash “Singapore Song”
Shonen Knife “Ah, Singapore”
List to be continually updated. Here’s a good, less judgemental list. Oh, and a little piece on Hazard, Nebraska, immortalised in that Richard Marx song.