Some possible theme songs for a former hometown

There is a freebie magazine in NYC called The L Magazine

In an issue from a few years ago titled "the music issue," the question was asked, as one of the regular features (the "New York argument," in which two New Yorkers square off on some topic) What's the quintessential NYC song? The arguments were posited by a couple of musicians.


One writer argues for Lou Reed's "Take a Walk on the Wild Side," arguing that the song, about Warhol's Factory, reflects NYC being a collection of scenes: Hip-Hop, Hipsters, Hippies, 1960s Folkies, Antifolk, Bohemians, Beats, Bobos, the Harlem Renaissance, Glam, Broadway, and that New York breeds and imports the talented, brilliant leaders of avant-cultural movements, and stews them in neighborhood cauldrons of endless experience.


The other argues for the song Autumn in "New York," proclaiming that "while New York holds out the promise of every worldly success imaginable - fame, treasure, and young flesh for starters - you're just as likely to find abject failure and cruel heartbreak in New York as you are dizzying success and sweet romance. All of this is poignantly conveyed in `Autumn in New York'."


So, in thinking about this, I ask, what song best describes or conveys something unique about where you live or come from?



Here are three possible picks, and these pertain to Jersey City where I grew up and lived for three different stretches. I couldn't decide between these:


"One of the Boys" by Mott the Hoople
"The Real Me" by the Who
"In the neighborhood" by Tom Waits.

While the first of these tunes, written by Mick Ralphs and Ian Hunter is a classic rocker and is about being in a rock band/fitting in with a group, almost in a tribal sense, the second of these, also a classic rocker, is about not fitting in and feeling alienated. Both of these convey the feel of growing up in a blue collar town like Jersey City. And finally, the third song, the Waits tune, is a nostalgic, somewhat bittersweet ballad, observing/(celebrating?) the eccentric misfits with whom one makes a community, in spite of everything. It has a kind of shaggy dog quality to it, and impressionistically, reminds me of certain aspects of the place in which I grew up. It connects the old to the new, which is how I recall life in an aging post-industrial city which happened to be situated in the shadow of Manhattan. The video for this song is terrific and was directed by Haskell Wexler, the great documentarian.

Anyway, here are some lyrics to the Who song.

The cracks between the paving stones
Look like rivers of flowing veins
Strange people who know me
Peeping from behind every window pane

The girl I used to love
Lives in this yellow house
Yesterday she passed me by
She doesn't want to know me now

Can you see the real me, can you, can you
Can you see the real me, can you, whoa yeah

And here are the lyrics to In the Neighborhood

Well the eggs chase the bacon
round the fryin' pan
and the whinin' dog pidgeons
by the steeple bell rope
and the dogs tipped the garbage pails
over last night
and there's always construction work
bothering you
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood

Friday's a funeral
and Saturday's a bride
Sey's got a pistol on the register side
and the goddamn delivery trucks
they make too much noise
and we don't get our butter
delivered no more
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood

Well Big Mambo's kicking
his old grey hound
and the kids can't get ice cream
'cause the market burned down
and the newspaper sleeping bags
blow down the lane
and that goddamn flatbed's
got me pinned in again
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood

There's a couple Filipino girls
gigglin' by the church
and the windoe is busted
and the landlord ain't home
and Butch joined the army
yea that's where he's been
and the jackhammer's diggin'
up the sidewalks again
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood