Attempts to Inspire Regional Pride That Actually Work On You

and "Celebrated Summer" by Husker Du gets me nostalgic for the Twin CIties, where I lived for a while

In contrast, I'm not sure I can call myself a New Yorker yet without a feeling of guilty irony, but DAMN, Ric Burns' New York: A Documentary Film got me near tears all the fucking time from the suggestion that I had even the teeniest connection to all those people who lived and died and made sacrifices to the future.

HotelOpera: the best part about the whole song is the first line, "when York becomes Greenmount"
BornonthEfloor: ugh baltimore references
HotelOpera: York Rd. goes through the burbs in Towson but when it goes into Baltimore and becomes the ghetto it's Greenmount Ave.
HotelOpera: ahh fuck you that's my hood
BornonthEfloor: haha
HotelOpera: i don't get to hear local references in music that i can identify with that often...basically all i have is him and B Rich, so lemme enjoy it

Even better: the Ramones' "Cretin Hop" was reportedly inspired by a van trip down I-94 in St. Paul on tour, where they noticed the "Cretin-Vandalia" exit sign.

Daddino: Try this.

i claim kinship with Philadelphia from my father and his family from thereabouts, however. listening to an old gamble and huff or thom bell song from the Seventies definitely brings back memories, though that might be more childhood nostalgia than philly pride (though during at least a portion of the seventies philadelphia was the place for soul music -- like what Manchester was in the early nineties). and the namedropping of places like South Street and Zipperhead's in the Dead Milkmen's "Punk Rock Girl" (the only other song of theirs I like) and Fairmount Park, Mannequin, and Boys2Men in Ween's "Spirit of '76" both make me smile.

just slippin’ on by on LSD, friday night trouble bound.

"Oh Alabama
Banjos playing through the broken glass
Windows down in Alabama."

and it hit home, just as it does when I hear it today.

Speaking of Neil Young, "Helpless" is my favorite
song of his. Makes me want to visit north Ontario.

thats melbourne for you.

specific to my upbringing: Lou's "Coney Island Baby" (even tho the song's not really about Coney Island)

"Long Island" by That Dog.

you're pretty dreamy for a boy from long island
you should come to see me on my western horizon
seems as though our paths were never meant to meet
but i just look at you and know you're pretty sweet
i want to set a place for you at my table
we can sit forever watching reruns on cable
take you driving in my brother's beat up car
sharing a cigarette we'll wish upon a star together

so you say you like my shirt
(i like your shirt)
and you say you've got a lot just like them
(i've got a lot just like them)
and i hear you wrote a song about me
by definition, a crush must hurt
and they do
and they do
just like the one i have on you.

For me, the only thing that comes close is "Rumors," because I so clearly remember the summer it came out when I was 7 and it seemed like it was always on in our house and at all my parents' friends houses. And I especially remember it being on the tape deck of my dad's friend Tom's green VW Rabbit driving down the dirt roads on the way to the swimming pond in rural upstate New York. So anyway, "Rumors" always feels like the Finger Lakes in summertime to me, and I suppose it always will.

Bruce Springsteen songs rarely instill any sort of regional pride in me, nor do I think they're particularly meant to... especially things like "Born to Run" which are about escaping Monmouth County. Come to think of it, I did find that song very inspirational during my high school years...

also, though i only faintly recognise most of pulp's 'sheffield: sex city' the kind of behaviour is completely common to wherever you might want to rent cheaply in urban yorkshire.

Hrm. Neither is "UMass," for when I lived in Amherst. I do feel something with that, though. Just not pride.

Luckily there's plenty of New Orleans stuff, but I'm going to bypass "Bloodletting" and "Walking in New Orleans" altogether and go for "Ain't No Place To Pee On Mardi Gras Day," which somehow does get me all, "Aww, gosh, I love living here, and I'm gonna hate to move, and I've been here long enough that it really is home," even though the song's about ... not being able to find a place to pee.

It's just that kind of town.

God, it felt fantastic.

the Mamas and the Papas, "California Dreaming" -- and this is Annapolis in the winter, dreadful, dreary, silent, and anybody who was ever anywhere else wants to be there -- but the buildings and the water and everyone else know that you're gonna stay, you'll just dream about escape.

Stephen Foster, "My Old Kentucky Home" (sans use of "darkie")
"Blue Moon of Kentucky"
Elvis, "Ol' Kentucky Rain"
Neil Diamond, "Kentucky Woman"
[uh forget the guys who sang it], "The Banks of the Ohio" (is that the title?)
Palace Bruddahs, "Ohio River Boat Song" (esp. for "And oh your lovely hair/ Has more beauty I declare/ Then all the tresses there/ From Smoketown [Louisville neighborhood, predominantly African-American -h] to Oldham County" [County northeast of Louisville, predominantly Geir Honky -h.0)
Palace Inc., "I Am a Cinematographer"
Crain, "Kentucky 6000"
The Web, "Freedom Hall" (esp. for Samaki Walker references)
(some suckah session musicians), "Louisville (Look What We Can Do!)"
All Slint songs.
Babylon Dance Band, "Rubbertown," "When I'm Home," "Shively Spleen."
King Kong, "Old Man on the Bridge."
Bastro, "Demons Begone," uh that one song about the defunct falls fountain ("It don't repeat/ Don't see no pattern/ Don't see no flower-de-lis/ Just shoots catfish and carp and mung/ High into the air"..."They'll build a bigger one in Cincinnati!"), "Flesh-Colored House" ("Celebrate the 4th on the 3rd/ With two fifths").
Gastr del Sol, "A Watery Kentucky," "Eight Corners"

Destroy:

Dan Fogelburp, "Run for the Roses"

Neil Young's "Helpless" hits me b/c it talks about a town in N. Ontario and geese and best changes, and when I was 18 I lived in Wawa, Ont, home to the world's largest freestanding gooseshaped structure and, y'know, since it was my first time really away from home and coming-of-age and frostbite and all that bullshit...

I've always loved John Mellencamp. Lots of his songs just break my heart because they capture small-town Indiana life so well. He's exactly the same age as my parents, and to hear him (semi-nostalgically) singing about his childhood while I was going through mine really touched me, even at the age of 10 or 12.

And then he has songs about people of his generation, union workers and contractors like my parents, boomers who weren't getting rich in the stock market, just people who were trying to do something good for their family. Indiana still has a lot of anti-black prejudice to deal with, and he sings about that too--it rocked my world when he had an interracial couple in the video for "Cherry Bomb", not because I had been taught that that was wrong, but because I knew that there were people in Indiana who thought that it was wrong and that he wasn't afraid to piss them off.

'Cause Indiana sucks!

(a little cross-state jokery for ya)

*flounces off to the Tastee-Freez*

Why did we build the 2nd Street Bridge 'cross the Ohio over to Indiana?

So the Hoosiers could swim over in the shade!

Weirdly, even Bon Jovi can do that to me these days. He's from Sayreville, which is still a blue-collar place. Even though I'm not a fan, I respect anyone who can make it out of Sayreville.

Of course, both Bruce and Jon now live in upscale Rumson.

(i dont really like mellencamp, or know any songs what I like about Indiana... Whereabouts are you from? I'm in Frankfort)

Those radio ads still haunt me.

... some years ago, i had to make a flight from Newark to Charlotte, North Carolina for a business trip. it was the first time i'd flown over New Jersey, and was able to see my home state in all of its suburban glory from the sky. the first song that came to mind was the talking heads' "the big country," david byrne's description of what he saw (the buildings, the farmlands, the parkway, and "i have learned how these things work together") and the "i wouldn't live there if you paid me" line.

... some years ago, i had to make a flight from Newark to Charlotte, North Carolina for a business trip. it was the first time i'd flown over New Jersey, and was able to see my home state in all of its suburban glory from the sky. the first song that came to mind was the talking heads' "the big country," david byrne's description of what he saw (the buildings, the farmlands, the parkway, and "i have learned how these things work together") and the "i wouldn't live there if you paid me" line. though of course i did!

GG ALLIN!!!

This makes me smile a lot. I'm from Latvia, but hey, close enough. No one's ever put Latvia into a lyric.

Melbourne belongs to me
A city by the dirty water, the Yarra
No one can take away her memory,
'Cause, Melbourne belongs to me!

I'm from paisley

no-one sings about southampton, unsurprisingly.

I believe Black Box Recorder do, somewhere.