Songs About New York

 

I don't think there is a city in this world that has been sung as often as New York. That's what I thought a few days ago when I listened to Simon and Garfunkel's The Only Living Boy In New York City and thought this could be an idea for a new post. So I picked out a few songs that were different to the usual songs from The Pogues, Sting or Pet Shop Boys. Absolutely and eclectic and incompletely list based on my choice.

New York

Lou Reed's output in the late 80s was fantastic. He made with Blue Mask a guitar-based record with a few great songs on it. And in 1989 he released his last masterpiece with New York. It's a bundle of great songs with lyrics you should listen to (if you didn't at least). It's his homage to the town he used to life and he loved - knowing the bad side of it. I remember when I drove home later at the evening from a business meeting and Alan Bangs (the very small version of John Peel in Germany) introduced this record. While driving I fell in love with this record and the day after I bought this record - and it was a very good decision. It's a record filled with recollections of his home town. Never heard a homage to his home town like tis before and after. The songs on this record are so full of power and political statements - and they are still actual. This record and the songs on it accompanied me for 25 years. And what can I say more to a record?

Lou Reed - Endless Cycle
Lou Reed - Hold On

Run Daddy Run

Weekends over and another working week ahead. This week C. will come back from Sri Lanka to watch out what's to be done in the next weeks. For me it's just another busy week ahead in which I don't know what problems in our projects I should be work. Anyway, let's start this week with a song from Fun Lovin' Criminals a New York based band who plays a fantastic mixture of alternative rock, hip hop, funk, blues and jazz. As a band, they cover such issues as organized crime, recreational drug use, violence, poverty and politics. Their songs are often gritty or existentialist in nature, but are just as often humorous or satirical. One of my favorites is Run, Daddy, Run which shows their abilities maybe the best. It's a very good mixture of the styles I described.

Have a good start into the week people

Fun Lovin' Criminals - https://app.box.com/s/7kmlzin7r1mxxd86y297

Halloween Parade

It might be the best song about losing your friends on AIDS. I remembered this while I watched a documentary about HIV infection from the start a long time ago and the nowadays possibilities to heal or at least to alleviate the effects of the disease. It's from Lou Reed's 1989 album New York, where he has written down his anger about his hometown and the land of the free.

There's a down town fairy singing out "Proud Mary"
As she cruises Christopher Street
And some Southern Queen is acting loud and mean
Where the docks and the Badlands meet

This Halloween is something to be sure
Especially to be here without you

There's a Greta Garbo and an Alfred Hitchcock
And some black Jamaican stud
There's five Cinderellas and some leather drags
I almost fell into my mug

There's a Crawford, Davis and a tacky Cary Grant
And some Homeboys lookin' for trouble down here from the Bronx

But there ain't no Hairy and no Virgin Mary
You won't hear those voices again
And Johnny Rio and Rotten Rita
You'll never see those faces again

This Halloween is something to be sure
Especially to be here without you

There's the Born Again Losers and the Lavender Boozers
And some crack team from Washington Heights
The boys from Avenue B and the girls from Avenue D
A Tinkerbell in tights

This celebration somehow gets me down
Especially when I see you're not around

There's no Peter Pedantic saying things romantic
In Latin, Greek or Spic
There's no Three bananas or Brandy Alexander
dishing all their tricks

It's a different feeling that I have today
Especially when I know you've gone away

There's a girl from Soho with a teeshirt saying "I Blow"
She's with the "jive five 2 plus 3"
And the girls for pay dates are giving cut rates
Or else doing it for free

The past keeps knock, knock, knocking on my door
And I don't want to hear it anymore

No consolations please for feelin' funky
I got to get my head above my knees
But it makes me mad and mad makes me sad
And then I start to freeze

In the back of my mind I was afraid it might be true
In the back of my mind I was afraid that they meant you

The Halloween Parade
At the Halloween parade
At the Halloween parade
See you next year, at the Halloween parade

Lou Reed - Halloween Parade