Pilgrimages to addresses/intersections mentioned in songs

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Inspired by this post, I want to know about other famous song addresses or intersections.

In New York during my only visit, I was close to 53rd & 3rd but didn't actually see it. Eighth & Forty-Deuce was slightly seedy, but I can imagine that seeing a woman there in 1986 circa License to Ill may have been a bigger insult. I didn't make it up to Lexington and One-Two-Five, that's for the next trip. I never got off the freeway to stand on a corner when I went through Winslow, Arizona because I hate the Eagles. And I'll probably end up at Market and Van Ness from Soul Coughing's "White Girl" next month in San Franciso.

joygoat (joygoat), Saturday, 19 February 2005 05:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Living in Iowa, I've made the pilgrimage to roughly the neighborhood of Map Ref. 41 Degrees North 93 Degrees West, but have yet to go out there with a GPS and really nail it down.

briania (briania), Saturday, 19 February 2005 05:35 (twenty-one years ago)

77 White Street (the Mudd Club...as mentioned in "Life During Wartime" by the Talking Heads) now lacks any aura of happening whatsoever (though down the alley, someone cryptically has scrawled "It's not the Samo Anymore," an allusion to Mudd Club regular Jean-Michel Basquiat's graffitti tag).

Lexington & 125th Street is nothing to write home about.

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 19 February 2005 05:38 (twenty-one years ago)

The corner of 8th Street & 6th Avenue (as sung about in the `Stones' "Dance Pt.1 on Emotional Rescue ) is still a hotbed of activity, but not of the kind Mick would care about anymore.

I'm always baffled by the line in "Back in the New York Groove" by Ace Frehley of Kiss (though I believe it's a cover) when he's talking about what a great night out he's going to have, but sings...

Stopped at Third and 43...Exit to the Night, it's going to be Ecstacy....

Now, I don't claim to be the Mayor, but lemme tell ya,....there ain't NOTHING excstatic about Third Avenue and 43rd Street. There's nothing there to get excited about, nor has there ever been.

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 19 February 2005 05:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Not an address per se, but I think it kind of fits...

I have been "High on the hill, looking over the bridge to the MCG/ And way up on high, the clock on the tower read 11 degrees" -- (Paul Kelly, Leaps And Bounds). It was purely by accident, but a truly great moment when we realised what we were seeing.

VegemiteGrrl (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, 19 February 2005 05:46 (twenty-one years ago)

A bit esoteric, but Cop Shoot Cop had a b-side called "Queen of Shinbone Alley." Shinbone Alley is just that -- an alley -- about one block to the East of CBGB's. It's now a bit posh, but "back in the day" (as they say), the alley served as a convenient pit-stop for nefarious doings. It's now gated off and used as a parking space. They even took down the sign.

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 19 February 2005 05:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Whoops, scratch that. Shinbone Alley is WEST of CB's (which is on the Bowery). Shinbone Alley is a few steps to the north of Bleeker & Lafayette......like any of you care.

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 19 February 2005 05:51 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm pretty sure there was a Spin Doctors song called Shinbone Alley as well.

joygoat (joygoat), Saturday, 19 February 2005 05:58 (twenty-one years ago)

christ, if those two groups of pilgrims meet in that alley...

Gear! (can Jung shill it, Mu?) (Gear!), Saturday, 19 February 2005 05:59 (twenty-one years ago)

"Seventh Avenue Static" by Firewater mentions Collister Street...which is a picturesque little alley in TriBeCa about a stone's throw from Firewater's erstwhile record label, JetSet's old offices.

There's a track on Orange by the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion where he name checks Ludlow Street (might be "Ditch"). Ludlow Street is such a hipster's Mecca, but it's long since lost its gritty seediness (or should that be its seedy grittyness?) There's now more happenin' taverns than you can shake a stick at....and the shabby storefornt once featured on Paul's Boutique (which wasn't actually called Paul's Boutique) is now a hepcat cafe called -- wait for it -- Paul's Boutique (also on Ludlow).

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 19 February 2005 06:02 (twenty-one years ago)

When in NY, I forgot to go and hang on the corner of fifty-second and broadway like Rancid would. (though I probably walked by it without noticing)

box box box box box (cis), Saturday, 19 February 2005 06:13 (twenty-one years ago)

I can see 52nd & Broadway from the window of my office, and I've never seen any members of Rancid hangin' out there...nor do i understand why they'd want to.

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 19 February 2005 06:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Tom Waits' Christmas card hooker don't have a husband, he don't play a trombone, and she can't live above a dirty bookstore on 9th St. and Euclid Ave. 'cause that intersection doesn't exist.

Stupornaut (natepatrin), Saturday, 19 February 2005 06:19 (twenty-one years ago)

(But the Hold Steady are right -- Payne Avenue does live up to its name.)

Stupornaut (natepatrin), Saturday, 19 February 2005 06:20 (twenty-one years ago)

And while we're on Craig Finn's tip:

"Woke up on 15th and Franklin with a straight-lookin' chick and the prick that she picked up at the Nankin"

Stupornaut (natepatrin), Saturday, 19 February 2005 06:25 (twenty-one years ago)

"Forsythe Street" by Muckaferguson is pleasantly still as grubby as they described it...with maybe fewer naked junkies.

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 19 February 2005 06:26 (twenty-one years ago)

Most of my pilgrimages are film related, not music related, but the last time I was in Paris, I struggled unsuccessfully to find Rue de Tabazan ("Tabazan" is a song on Killing Joke's NightTime).

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 19 February 2005 06:27 (twenty-one years ago)

If i remember correctly, Ryan Adams actually makes a geographical mistake or two when extolling the merits of his adopted city in "New York, New York". Can't remember exactly, though.

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 19 February 2005 06:32 (twenty-one years ago)

My main impetus for going to Tangiers was some throway line in a Dylan song. I dunno, it just planted a seed.

Dr. Bitterfeld, Saturday, 19 February 2005 06:36 (twenty-one years ago)

not really related but isn't there a phone number(non-555) in some Waits song? i can remember impulses to call it and only being crashingly disappointed when i inevitably would have learned it was disconnected or something. what's the song? anyone call?

also, to work phish into more than half of my ilx posts, kids used to pilgrimage to King of Prussia, PA trying to find the Rhombus mentioned in the Gamehendge story.

Jimmy_tango, Saturday, 19 February 2005 15:27 (twenty-one years ago)

The first thing I did when I moved to San Francisco in 1996 was to make a pilgrimage to 2400 Fulton Street because of the Jefferson Airplane. It was almost as important to me, when I moved to NYC in 2003, to make a visit out to Avenue P because of Carole King's "Really Rosie" soundtrack, but I've never gotten around to it.

Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Sunday, 20 February 2005 01:18 (twenty-one years ago)

I first walked on Southwood Plantation Road here in Tallahassee probably around the time John Darnielle made a song with that title/

Ian Riese-Moraine (Eastern Mantra), Sunday, 20 February 2005 21:01 (twenty-one years ago)


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