Songs About Geography...

Michelle Shocked's song "Anchorage" very accurately describes Alaska as the largest state in the Union. It fails to mention that Anchorage is the ugliest place in the the largest state in the Union.

Toto - "Africa": Song about a continent that none of the five white guys in the band had probably ever set foot on, played with not-a- single instrument from the continent in question.

Ron Sexsmith's "Lebanon, Tennessee". It makes me laugh, because I live 10 miles from that city and it's absolutely nothing like he describes.

Alaska and Nebraska-yawn, thay havent got anything on Dundein

well, wire's map rep 41 N 93 W leaps to mind, although a) i've never really bothered to find out where that is on a proper map and b) i assumed the actual location was irrelevant to the song. am i wrong? great song, though.

I believe that the location in question from the Wire song is of all places Des Moines, Iowa.

"Map Ref 41 N 93 W" makes me feel better about Des Moines, I think, cause I sure do like Wire.

Creedence's "Lodi" and "Porterville" sum up just about everything there is to those places.

I think it was "By the Time I Get To Phoenix" that launched a spate of adult pop songs in the late 60s that referred to some interchangeable, mid-size American city without really describing anything, like "Galveston" and "Seattle" ("the bluest skies you've ever seen"?). The "Witchita Lineman" could just as easily have been from Scranton. Around the same time, TV sitcoms began doing the same with random cities instead of always being set in New York or L.A. (if not Anytown). I do think "Phoenix" describes beautifully the interior monologue that accompanies a solitary driver on the (then new) American freeway system connecting, or putting distance between, rootless sunbelt boomtowns.

I guess "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?" fits into the aforementioned trend, coming as it did in 1968 on the heels of "By the Time I get to Phoenix". It's kind of a funny song, although San Jose features in the title, the song is mainly about LA, and San Jose is basically presented as a foil to the glitter of LA. We're never told anything about San Jose, other than, "They've got a lot of space", which still rings true today, as anyone who has driven through the city limits can attest.