Listing Cities

We on Award Tour with Mohammad my man.
Goin' each and every place with a mic in our hand.

Houston, Delaware, D.C., Dallas!
—A Tribe Called Quest, "Award Tour"

A Music Trope. So you're writing a new track and you want it to be a hit in Boston. One obvious way to do this is to make your song all about how awesome Boston is. This creates a special connection with listeners in Boston.

But what if you want your song to be a hit everywhere? Since you can't write a song about how awesome every city in the world is, the next best thing is just to list off a bunch of random cities, regions, or whatever. This surprisingly popular tactic creates a momentary connection with people from many different places.

A type of List Song.

Examples of Listing Cities include:

Music

Acid House

  • The JAMs' (aka The KLF) "Grim Up North" lists towns in the north of England. No rhyming or anything.
    • Also (as The KLF), the full-length version of America: What Time Is Love? has a lengthy section of Shout Outs to USA-an cities and states.

Alternative Metal

  • "Boom" by P.O.D.

Alternative Rock

  • Concrete Blonde's "Close to Home" lists a bunch of cities across the south of the United States - but none of them are home.
  • "Going Nowhere Slow" by Bloodhound Gang lists an impressive amount of cities rather quickly.
  • The first verse of Mayday Parade's "Get Up"

Blues-Rock

  • Steve Miller's "Rock'n Me":

I went from Phoenix, Arizona
All the way to Tacoma
Philadelphia, Atlanta, L.A.
Northern California
Where the girls are warm
So I could be with my sweet baby, yeah

  • John Mayer rattles off the names of a few U.S. cities where "it's been a long night" in the chorus of "Who Says".
  • "Peace Frog" by The Doors. Partially subverted in that Jim Morrison was listing recent riots during the hippie/peace movement:

Blood in the streets of the town of New Haven.
Blood stains the roofs and the palm trees of Venice
Blood in my love in the terrible summer
Bloody red sun of Phantastic L.A.
There's blood in the streets it's up to my ankles...
Blood in the streets of the town of Chicago...

Brazilian Rock

  • Brazilian variations: band Os Paralamas do Sucesso lists three slums in the chorus for "Alagados" ("Alagados, Trenchtown,[1] Favela da Maré") and singer Tim Maia names a lot of Rio de Janeiro beaches in "Do Leme ao Pontal" (besides the two in the title, "Flamengo, Botafogo, Urca, Praia Vermelha!").

Classical

From the Meuse to the Memel,
from the Adige to the Little Belt.

Comedy/Parody

  • The Amateur Transplants, when doing gigs, parody this trope by singing a song about how much they love the city, where the city in question turns out to be something along the lines of "Edinburgh, Birmingham, Manchester, Bournemouth and Crewe".
  • "He Broke My Heart in Three Places" by Spike Jones starts off with big cities (Seattle, Chicago, and New York) and ends up with a long fast list of small towns and other locations.
  • Mitch Benn's reaction to the Post Office deleting county names from its database was a song about postcode areas.

Too long it's been since I've last seen the hills of IV51,[2]
And from the shores of LL54 [3] for far too long I'm gone,
I long to wander over BA6[4]'s fields of green,
But I was stuck for years and years in SW16.[5]

  • Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie's "Toronto Song". Starts out on the subject of how much Toronto sucks, moves on to how much the rest of Ontario sucks, concludes with how much the rest of Canada sucks.

Country

  • Second verse of "God Bless the USA" by Lee Greenwood:

From the lakes of Minnesota
To the hills of Tennessee
Across the plains of Texas
And from sea to shining sea
From Detroit down to Houston
And New York to LA
There's pride in every American heart
And it's time we stand and say...

  • Rascal Flatts does the 'general area' type in "Me And My Gang".
  • "Comin' to Your City", by country band Big & Rich. Notable for not only including bigger cities like Buffalo and L.A., but also including lesser known cities such as Cincinnati and Jeff City.
  • The song "I've Been Everywhere" rattles off over 80 cities. It was originally written for Australia but has subsequently been rewritten for a number of other countries.
  • "Flyover States" by Jason Aldean mentions several states including Indiana, Oklahoma, amd Kansas, and other places such as Amarillo and The Badlands.
  • Neal McCoy's "The Shake" does this, in the middle of a song about booty-shaking.

Electro-hop

  • LMFAO did a variation on this by putting out a large amount of alternate versions of their single "I'm In Miami Trick", with the chorus re-dubbed to refer to other major US cities. Since the song is more about partying in general than any attributes of Miami itself, no other lyrical changes are made, however unlikely it might sound for one to be "in the sand with a Red Bull in my hand" in Boise, Idaho.

Electronic

  • "Get Ready" by R 2 Swing lists various cities and shows their patriotism by starting with Paris.
  • "Breakfast in Berlin" by Julien-K seems to be going for a "partying around the world" thing.

Folk

  • "This Land Is Your Land" by Woody Guthrie:

From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters
Note there are many versions for many different countries.

  • The British marching song "Over the Hills and Far Away" (made famous today by Sharpe) was written to cover the battlefields of the War of the Spanish Succession, but enjoyed a revival a century later in the Napoleonic Wars as British involvement in those conveniently also covered the same countries:

O'er the hills and o'er the main
Through Flanders, Portugal and Spain
King George commands and we obey
Over the hills and far away.

Funk Rock

Hardcore Hip Hop

  • The song "Raw Shit ft. MC Ren & Paris" from the Public Enemy album Rebirth Of A Nation includes Flava Flav listing "Public Enemy number one in X", X being, in order, New York, Chicago, Detroit, Oakland, Baltimore, Miami, Indiana, L.A., DC, New Jersey, Cleveland Ohio, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Philly, Atlanta and St. Louis.

Hard Rock

  • Hawkwind's "Damnation Alley", based on the Roger Zelazny novel, subverts this with a list of annihilated places:

No more Arizona now, Phoenix is fried up
Oklahoma City, what a pity it's gone
Louisiana's dealt it and the Missus Hip's dried up
No more Chattanooga, Cherokee, Lexington

Heavy Metal

Our armies in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales
Our brothers in Belgium, Holland and France
Will not fail
Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Italy
Switzerland, Austria
Back to the Glory of Germany

Hip Hop

  • Lil Kim' song "Lighters Up" lists a lot of places ranging from Bed-Stuy to Kingston, Jamaica
  • MIMS' song "This is Why I'm Hot"
  • "Country Grammar" also lists different cities (though it is one of the few songs to proudly proclaim love for St. Louis)
    • What else would you expect from Nelly?
  • As a variant, the opening of "Perfect Gentleman" by Wycleff Jean includes a list of what one must assume are the names of 'gentleman's clubs'- "Magic City, New York Dogs, Rolex"
  • This trope was endemic with merengue hip-hop singers in the early 90's, specially Proyecto Uno and El General. They couldn't release an album without a song listing all the countries they were having (or hoping to have) success in.
  • Sir Mixalot: "What's up Chicago, what's up? What's up Chicago what's up? Chicago, jump on it, jump on it, jump on it."
    • And in "Square Dance Rap", he names off places that rock according to him: Seattle, L.A., Miami, D.C., Carolina, Houston, Texas, your momma and London, England.
  • Tupac's "California Love" shouts out to just about every major city in California towards the end, and L.A., Watts, and Compton are called out to in the actual chorus. San Diego, though, is conspicuously absent...
  • "The Good Life" by Kanye West. Apparently the good life feels like Atlanta, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, D.C., Virginia Beach, and the Bay area.

House

  • Global Deejays - "The Sound of San Francisco": In addition to the titular San Francisco, this dance track repeatedly lists 14 other major world cities, such as Cape Town and Amsterdam.
  • Saint Etienne had a song ("Girl VII") where singer Sarah Cracknell listed off in a monotone a large number of places, many of them London boroughs and places recognisable to Londoners, but also including Pakistan and Buffalo, for example.
  • The titular character John from Lemon Jelly's Ramblin' Man has rambled to some 67 different locations.

Indian music

  • "Dard-e-Disco" from the film Om Shanti Om has "London Paris New York LA San Francisco"

Indie Folk

  • "The 50 States" by Sufjan Stevens seriously name-drops all 50 of the United States. He would use the song to open the show on the tour supporting his Illinois album.
    • In "They Are Night Zombies", the backing singers name-drop a lot of Illinois cities over the chorus. Looking them up reveals that most of them are ghost towns, or on their way to becoming ghost towns.

Indie Rock

  • Girls Against Boys' "Tucked-in":

New York.
Chicago, Chicago, Chicago.
New York.
Chicago, Chicago, Chicago.
Los Angeles. There's something nice to be said.

Industrial Metal

  • "On Earth" by Samael.

New Wave

  • "Pop Muzik" by M:

New York, London, Paris, Munich
Everybody talk about pop muzik

  • "Hide the Beer, the Pastor's Here" by the Swirling Eddies is a variation. Instead of listing cities, they list seminaries. After the song was published, the Eddies got a bunch of mail from pastors angry that their alma mater was mentioned in the song... and just as many letters from pastors wishing their alma mater had been mentioned.

Nu Metal

Pop

  • Katy Perry's "California Gurls" pretty much lists off every major city in California with a beach.

Pop Punk

  • All Time Low's song "Hello Brooklyn" mentions...well. Brooklyn. And some other places.

Progressive Rock

  • The end of "White Feather" from Marillion's Misplaced Childhood.

R & B

  • James Brown - "Living in America": Lists 9 major U.S. cities in a row, with echoing backup vocals for good measure.
    • "Night Train". It's pretty much an instrumental except for the city names.
  • "Dancing in the Street" by Martha and the Vandellas, and by proxy the numerous cover versions there-of.

Rap

  • A number of R&B or rap songs try to break the United States into three or four densely populated areas and give a shout out to each one, as in this quote from Nelly's "Dilemma":

East coast, I know you're shakin' right
Down south, I know you're bouncin' right
West coast, I know you're walkin' right
Midwest, I see you swingin' right

  • Drake's song "Fancy" mentions Atlanta, New York, Los Angeles, and Toronto.

Rock

Well east coast girls are hip
And the southern girls with the way they talk
The mid-west farmers daughters really make you feel alright
And the northern girls with the way they kiss
The west coast has the sunshine
I dig a french bikini on hawaii island

    • "Surfin USA" listed a bunch of surfing locations through the US.
      • "Surfin USA" was a lyrical rewrite of Chuck Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen", which also did the listing cities thing.

They're really rockin' in Boston
In Pittsburgh, PA
Deep in the heart of Texas
And round the Frisco Bay
All over St Louis
And down in New Orleans
All the cats wanna dance with
Sweet little sixteen

  • Huey Lewis's "Heart of Rock and Roll" does this. New York City and Los Angeles get their own verses, then there's this:

"D.C., San Antone and the Liberty Town
Boston and Baton Rouge
Tulsa, Austin, Oklahoma City,
Seattle, San Francisco, too"

    • On Canadian radio it's almost customary to have a voice shout out "Toronto! Montreal!" at the end.
    • The version played on one Central New York station during the song's run on the charts had "Syracuse! Albany!"
  • The Beatles parodied the Beach Boys' "California Girls" in "Back in the USSR" (as well as referencing another song):

Well, the Ukraine girls really knock me out,
They leave the West behind;
And Moscow girls make me sing and shout,
That Georgia's always on my mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mind!

  • Billy Joel's "You're My Home":

Home can be the Pennsylvania Turnpike
Indiana early morning dew
High up in the hills of California
Home is just another word for you

  • The Cross (a side project by Queen drummer Roger Taylor) has one of these entitled "Cowboys and Indians"
  • Tom Cochrane's "Life is a Highway" (not strictly cities):

From Mozambique to those Memphis nights
The Khyber Pass to Vancouver's lights

  • "Truckin'" by The Grateful Dead.
  • Todd Rundgren's "Hot Espresso (All Jacked Up)" centers around a jetsetting band in their neverending search for coffee.

"In the morning it's a bus to Barcelona
fly a little side trip over to Roma
Then we all meet up in Cannes, Nice, and Monaco
Venice, Munich, London, San Francisco
Then we drive to Santa Fe, then Austin
New Orleans, Atlanta, New York, Boston
We all meet up in Cleveland, Ohio
Columbus, Detroit, coffee stop Chicago
Then it's L.A., Honolulu
Sydney, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Kathmandu
And at the end of it all, if god is willing
We're sipping Turkish coffee in Greenwich Village...

Rock and Roll

  • "I've Been Everywhere"
    • Multiple versions thereof. The American version is probably the most famous, but it was originally about Australian placenames.
    • And this makes it easy to parody. The Simpsons had a version with all the fictional cities from the show, and there's an Alaskan version, in which the singer runs out of places in Alaska, and has to mention Anchorage several times.
    • And there's also a Discworld version, in which Rincewind lists all the places he's fled from.
    • There's also a version which lists several towns in Texas, sung by Johnny Cash, possibly some other singer. Really fast, too.
  • Ian Dury's "Rhythm Stick" and Flanders and Swann's "Slow Train" do something similar. Played straight by the UK's 2007 Eurovision entry ("Flying the Flag for You", wasn't it?), probably to garner votes.
  • Tommy Facenda recorded 28 different versions of his 1959 hit "High School U.S.A.," each one listing the names of local high schools in a different U.S. city.

Ska Punk

  • In Sublime's "April 29, 1992", this troper counts 26, although the context is far different from what you would normally find with this trope...

Tropical Music

  • Gaita-turned-salsa band Guaco had two songs dedicated to the beauty of Caracas's girls. One mentions several cities of Venezuela that also had pretty girls, before the singer settles on Caracas, while the other lists some of the most notorious neighborhoods of the city as providers of the sexy.

Vocal Jazz

  • "Route 66", first recorded by Nat King Cole and covered by countless others, lists many of the cities along the eponymous road.

Other

  • "Giddy Up" by Network Musical Ensemble is almost nothing but a city list:

This little horsie traveled Yonkers

 This little horsie Kissimee

 This little horsie Hollywood and

 This little horsie Milwaukee...

Examples from other media

Live-Action TV

  • Dustin the Turkey's "32 Counties" gives a line to every one of Ireland's traditional counties, although not all have a notable landmark or quality so he was forced to add "Laois has a prison", "Westmeath has a bypass" and "Leitrim's a mistake"...

Theatre

  • "We Open In Venice" from Kiss Me Kate. Lots of trope in Cremona.
  • In The Music Man, the residents of the fictional River City, Iowa list a bunch of town names from Real Life Iowa at the end of "Iowa Stubborn."

Western Animation

  • Wakko Warner's 50 State Capitols Song from Animaniacs can be seen here.
  • In the Simpsons episode Mobile Homer, a guy sings a version of I've Been Everywhere with all the fictional towns of the series.
  1. ↑ practically everyone hears this one wrong
  2. ↑ The Isle of Skye
  3. ↑ Caernarfon
  4. ↑ Glastonbury
  5. ↑ Streatham and Norbury, London
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