A bumper seven cities for you this week to make up for the paucity from now on in with the exception of W. I've had these cities scheduled for a couple of weeks so apologies if you have suggested a city in the comments and it has not been included.
It is always good to start with a Twofer and the picture above gives it away slightly. Tampa to Tulsa is a song off the excellent Rainy Day Music album by The Jayhawks. The distance from Tampa, Florida (population just under 400K) and Tulsa, Oklahoma (413K) is some 1240 miles or 1996km and would take approximately 18 hours. So Tampa is not quite Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa.
Tupelo, Mississippi has a population of just under 40K and was subject to a severe storm in 1936 which killed over 230 people. Fortunately Tupelo's most famous son the infant Elvis Presley was not one of them.. Assorted versions of Tupelo Honey have featured here relatively recently so I am resorting to Plan B (and a pretty good one it is) namely Tupelo by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.
R.E.M. make their second appearance in two days to sing about Texarkana from their Out of Time album. Texarkana is actually a twin city with one part in Texas (36K) and the other part in Arkansas (29K). I've just sussed that the clue is in the name!
Taneytown is a city in Carroll County, Maryland with a population of just 7234 at the 2020 census. From the pictures I have seen it looks like a pretty wee place so maybe it is not the same place that Steve Earle is singing about on his El Corazon album!
Tallahassee next but not Tallahassee Lassie or Bing Crosby's Tallahassee. No something more obscure referencing the capital city of the state of Florida with a population just over 200k. Keeping Tallahassee Green is a song by a band called The Shallows which appears on the 2001 Americana compilation on Loose Records - New Sounds of the Old West Volume 3.
Toledo was the name of the much missed cinema about half a mile from our house which is now a block of flats. It is also a city and the county seat of Lucas county in Ohio with a population of 270K making it the 4th most populous in the State. Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach join forces on Toledo a song from their collaborative album Painted From Memory.
Next week I am doubling up U and V. Otherwise it would be a very short post!
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Tupelo
The Shallows - Keeping Tallahassee Green
Elvis Costello with Burt Bacharach - Toledo
R.E.M. twice in a row? You're spoiling us, CC! Great choices all round.
ReplyDeleteSteve Earle's song is indeed about Taneytown, Maryland, which isn't far from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It's not large, but has a history going back to the 1750s. I hope your U songs include Blondie's Union City Blue, named of course after Union City, New Jersey. Utica, NY may well have a song named after it, but if so I haven't heard it.
ReplyDeleteMarc
Thanks for the local intel Marc.UCB is one (of the very few) that I have in mind.
DeleteA strong selection here. I don't recall The Shallows, even though I'm sure I had that Loose compilation.
ReplyDeleteUnion City is all I've got for U.
ReplyDeleteWeen have a song called Vallejo.
Brian's favourites, Tullycraft, sing about Vacaville.
I imagine you've got Calexico's House of Valpraiso in mind.
Johnny Dowd sings about Virginia Beach.
Formerly a big fan of Nick Cave, for a variety of reasons I've been consciously uncoupling myself from him of late. His Tupelo though is magnificent. REM's Texarkana for me was always a track to get through sandwiched as it was between the lovely Half A World Away and the evisceratingly raw Country Feedback.
ReplyDeleteI'll be gutted if UCB isn't before me next Friday night!!
Prepare to be non gutted!
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