Good evening, and welcome to your selection of songs about towns and cities.
If you have an Earworm you’d like to share, please send an .mp3, .m4a or a link to adempster73@gmail.com, together with a few words about why you’ve chosen it. Next week’s theme will be age, any age – old age, middle age, youth, rock of ages, and anything else you can dream up. Worms should reach me by close of play on Sunday 26 May.
Many thanks to all contributors – keep calm, and carry on!
Lord Creator – Kingston Town – severin: A 1970 release. Covered much later by UB40. Like a lot of things were.
Beirut – Nantes – DebbyM: Chosen because I spent a summer working in a village near Nantes many, many years ago. I listened to ‘Gulag Orkestar’ non-stop when it first came out and there’s at least three tracks on that album alone I could have chosen for this week’s topic. So I had to go personal to narrow it down. By the way, there’s a great video on YouTube of this song being played on the streets of Paris: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R781LDKOVJE
Jon Batiste – Boy Hood (w PJ Morton & Trombone Shorty) – tincanman: Growing up in NOLA, conveyed as only Jon Batiste could.
Bohren and der Club of Gore – Black City Skyline – glassarfemptee: Bohren and the Club of Gore are playing Union Chapel this autumn, against London’s skyline.
Monochrome Set – I Love Lambeth – shoegazer: Someone needs a move to the country.
Lovin’ Spoonful – Never Going Back – Fintan28: Nashville is off the list it seems. Oklahoma City? Fine. Denver? That’ll work too. “These are only cities but they’re cities without you”. Ouch!
Les Yeux d’la Tête – Hamburg – DebbyM: A great band to tap your feet to live, they often tour Germany and have dedicated a song to the city where I live.
Bellowhead – Gosport Nancy – Suzi: Gosport is a town with a longstanding naval tradition and, according to this song, the girls there can drink for England. One such girl is lovely Nancy, who the protagonist dreams of when he’s sailing on the sea.
Pentangle – Bruton Town – severin: It’s in Somerset, near Frome. The song is about two brothers who kill a servant so he won’t marry their sister. Not very nice people.
Adia Victoria – South For The Winter (w Matt Berninger) – tincanman: Every city gets cold and lonely when the leaves turn, but NYC is the worst.
Good Shoes – City By The Sea – severin: The band are from Morden so I have to assume that the city in question is somewhere on the south coast. My guess is Brighton. This was an unusually laid back track for them and rather beautiful, I reckon, in a melancholy, world weary kind of way.
Josh Rouse – Valencia – Fintan28: Josh’s adopted town is full of beaches & wonderful rhythms. Sounds a dream I think.
Eilen Jewell – My Hometown – glassarfemptee: Eilen Jewell loves her hometown.
Barbara – Göttingen – DebbyM: This is the song responsible for single-handedly restoring French-German relations after WWII (I think it’s actually referenced in history lessons)! In the early 1960s Barbara, a friend of Jacques Brel, Georges Brassens et al, was reluctant to perform in Germany – she was Jewish and had spent her teenage years in hiding – but was persuaded to accept a gig in the smallish university town of Göttingen. She was so charmed by the town and the people she met there, that she extended her stay and wrote this ‘hymn to peace’ which was later also recorded in German.
The Butterfield Blues Band – Small Town – glassarfemptee: An uncharacteristic song from Paul Butterfield, about small town tittle tattle. “Don’t pay it any mind”.
Tim Hart and Maddy Prior – The Dalesman’s Litany – Suzi: It namechecks a dozen or so Yorkshire towns and cities, including Huddersfield, and also Sheffield where Spouse went to uni. He says that he can remember wandering around the city after dark and it was just as described – ‘Where furnaces thrust out tongues of fire/ And roared like the wind on the fell.’
Main playlist, blurbs above:
YouTube Playlist, blurbs below:
Cult Maniax – Cities – Wyngatecarpenter: First heard this track 40 years ago, I’ve never got bored with it since.
The Oldham Tinkers – Mossley Corporation Pop – LongTallSilly: Can’t beat a drop of corporation pop!
Heavy Salad – Joggers from Mossley to Malibu Beach – LongTallSilly: For a very small place, two songs about Mossley is quite remarkable. This one is more modern from a band I keep plugging who have featured on 6 music now, even though last time I saw Ali, one of the singers, she was behind the bar, so I suspect the riches aren’t flowing yet!
The Youngbloods – Hippie From Olema No.5 – Fintan28: Olema is a widespot in the road a few miles south of Point Reyes Station. One good bar, nice people and a welcome to everyone. Even Mr. Haggard. We know you didn’t mean it Merle.
Elbow – Good Blood Mexico City – AliM: We saw Elbow last week, at Co-op Live at the Etihad Campus. They were jolly good, and so I couldn’t fail to suggest this song from their ‘AUDIO VERTIGO’ album.
The Waeve – City Lights – AliM: The Waeve are talented duo Graham Coxon (ex Blur) and Rose Elinor Dougall (ex The Pipettes), we saw them last week when they were the support band for Elbow. This is their new single.
Tom Lehrer – My Home Time – Mari Booker: I learned the lyrics when I was 13 and didn’t quite understand the nuances of some of the characters!
The 'Spill 