Songs About Places like Nashville. (Page 1 of 2)

Interesting topic. Do you mean cities specifically or "places" in general?

Just off the top of my head, these are some of the covers I play:

Carolina on my Mind
Saturday Night in Toledo, Ohio
My Homes in Alabama
California Dreamin'
Never Leave Harlan Alive
Galway to Graceland
Rocky Mountain High

And here's few I've written:

Kentucky Blue
Sky Above Atlanta
Mississippi 1955

And if rivers/streams/lake can be included:

Devil's Creek
Bluestone
Gauley River Ride
Obed Run
Quetico     

Phill cheers sosban fach  up until now reading it means little saucepan I never knew that. I used to work with a lady from Wales who told me it was a battle song. But now looking up the lyrics in English it is completely differant to what I thought the lyrics would be. I know she said to me the Welsh songs she learnt as a kid was all the Welsh language she heard in their part of Wales as English was what was spoken in her area. It sounds like a song you could make up some good lyrics to.

Dirty Ed  the songs you mentioned are exactly what I was looking for thank you.That is a good list of songs.  Just as I am writing this I can hear Walking In Memphis in  my head for some reason. I just checked out this one you mentioned Galway to Graceland it is a  newone  for me and I enjoyed listening to it. I will attach a link.
   
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLSZXHXFsss

EB  good one, so people will know what the song you mentioned is I will put a link here. Our Wellington  harbour leads out into the Cook Strait which is known locally and internationally as one of the most rugged stretches of water in the world. Travelling by sea to the South Island from here on a good day is good but on a blustry windy day can be a bit of an adventure. The cover  of the album you talk about must have captured a rough day well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4xNdyVPDJQ

Didn't we do a FSOTM on this subject??     

[EDIT] Here it is: https://www.chordie.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=34652

Neo cheers you have answered your own question yes you are right..

Dirty Ed I love those two youtubes of your excellent song writing thank you much appreciated.

Jim your song on youtube excellent I loved it also thank you.     

Bluestone is one of my favorite songs.

As for songs about places, yeah. I like them. It's good fodder for song writing.

My friend Kent and I wrote a song Bony River about a creek that had just enough water to float our kayaks some of the time. I which I could remember it.

I'd like to write songs about Harper's Ferry, WV and Sandstone, WV - or at least Diane's campground there in.

As for songs written, Almost Heaven, Nashville Cats, Lodi, Rocky Mountain High, and James River Blues all stick out as good ones. And Walking in Memphis. That's a good one.     

Growing up in the Appalachian mountains in Pennsylvania, I encountered Pennsylvania black bears fairly frequently when hiking or fishing.  Only once was there any altercation when a couple of cubs decided we hikers looked fun to play with.  We hikers took off running downhill just as fast as we could and kept doing it until we reached a creek swollen with snow melt. We plunged into that stream and quickly decided we'd rather face the bears. Two or three steps and our feet and legs were frozen! Fortunately, the cubs had given up their interest in us and Mama's only interest (as ours) was keeping us away from her cubs. Pennsylvania black bears eat mostly berries and grubs. They tend not to be aggressive and there's little cause for fear.

Hunters swear that they see mountain lion/puma/cougar in Pennsylvania and Virginia woods, though our departments of environment say there aren't any. I suppose the trail cameras must be lying, as certainly the government agencies must know best.  I have seen bobcats, which are a smaller wild cat. I've even had one that used to come quite often to yell at a racoon that lived in a maple tree outside my bedroom window. I don't know what that racoon ever did to the bobcat, but that bobcat surely gave the racoon a piece of his mind with monotonous regularity. I'm not sure if you've ever heard a bobcat scream, but it sounds like what I'd imagine a young woman would scream like if one were to pull her legs off. It's an absolutely horrifying sound, extremely loud, and the bobcat was literally five or six feet away from my bedroom window. There was no sleeping until the racoon was sufficiently chastened.

Timber rattlesnakes are more of a problem in Pennsylvania and Virginia. They tend to inhabit the big piles of leaves that collect at the bottom of cliffs alongside the better trout streams. They are the primary reason that I took to wearing waders moreso than protection from the water, as trout streams make for cool and pleasant wading in the summer. 

I did have a small grizzly bear wait his turn for my fishing hole in Alaska once. My fishing partner and I were swapping fishing pools bank fishing alongside a river in western Alaska. I had just leapfrogged my partner and started to fish a nice pool where I was taking some good rainbow trout who were gorging themselves on salmon eggs. The king salmon were spawning, and so were protected from fishermen at that moment. A shame as the king salmon were enormous. We contented ourselves catching large rainbow trout. My partner's pool stopped being productive, so he walked past me to the next pool.  When he got there and looked back upstream to me as a regular safety check (always know where your fishing partner is when in back-country), he said very casually, "Oh hey. There's a bear."  Our guide looked over to see a grizzly sitting on the beach watching me cast to the trout. It seemed patient, but we nevertheless got in the boat and went to midstream to watch what the bear would do.  Once we had left, he waited a little while, then went into the river right into the hole I had been fishing.  The king salmon were not protected from grizzlies (as if there were protection from grizzlies in any situation), and it proceeded to grab and eat four or five large salmon as daintily as a socialite nibbling on shrimp at a cocktail party.  I, for one, was grateful that the bear's mother had taught him manners and patience. It was a fairly small grizzly.  The guide guessed that this was its first year away from its mother (which would make it three years old, I believe). 

We also saw an enormous grizzly walking the opposite bank of a different river we were fishing. It crossed the river well up from us and walked up a tributary to do his fishing.  We later walked up the tributary to check out his foot prints and they were at least 10" across.

The socialite grizzly.

We were also chased off the lake shore by a moose. It is little known, but moose kill more people in Alaska annually than do grizzly.  They are very territorial, absolutely enormous, and entirely unstoppable once having set its mind on an objective (such as disemboweling flyfishermen).  We left everything - tackle, lunch, spare gas, etc. - on shore, got in the boat as quickly as we could, and shoved off.  Fortunately, this particular beach had a very steep drop off.  Only a few feet from shore the water was well ever 10' deep.  Fortunately, I had not yet moved my camera out of the boat, so I was able to get some photos.

Ornery Moose

I was also attacked by a tern to whose nest I must have walked too near.

Arctic Tern

100's of these were caught. All fish but for one pink salmon that was unfortunately hooked too deeply to release safely were released. The pink salmon was eaten for lunch.

My best rainbow ever - 23" long.

Cheers Zurf great photos and interesting read. There is a lot of Rainbow trout and Brown Trout  in rivers around New Zealand. We don't have bears or snakes of animals like Pumas or Cougars. Also we dont have crocodiles or anything like that. The biggest danger and killer here  is people drowning or getting lost in the  bush or dyeing of Hypoferremia. We have Deer and wild pigs they will get out of your way as long as they don't feel trapped. Only people who I have heard of been killed or hurt by animals here are those killed by farm livestock or dog attack. The sea around NZ  has sharks but we dont get many shark attacks on humans.
TF sounds like Nova Scotia has a lot of Apple Blossoms must be a beautiful sight.. Here is a link to the late  Slim Dusty a man who sang in a similar country style to  Wilf Carter singing about a country hall in Australia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ma8cTWNOpWg

Neo, I laughed out loud at your comment. I once went to Liverpool and had a photo with John Lennon in Matthew street! But he was made of bronze not wax! That's about as close as I'll ever get I suppose. We came home on the Thursday and Paul McCartney visited the LIPA school next day, probably walked over the place I'd been standing. Oh wicked fate!     

Paradise-John Prine
That's How I Got To Memphis-Tom T Hall
Memphis Tennessee- Johnny Rivers version esp
Rocky Top- Osbourne Brothers
Detroit City- Bobby Bare
500 Miles-?
Amarillo By morning-?     

I think Amarillo By Morning is George Straight, but if not I'm sure someone will correct me.  No idea on 500 Miles. It's a wonderful standard, though.

I'll add to the list a couple of my favorite place songs:
Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight (Rodney Crowell), and
Memphis in the Meantime (John Hiatt)

I particularly like the Bo Diddly groove John Hiatt gets going in Memphis in the Meantime.     

Greetings  PrineFan,  John Prine is playing a concert here in our little city of Wellington, New Zealand tonight Saturday 2nd March.. Unfortunately for me a family commitment means  I wont be there.

Neo that Kylee photo gave me a good laugh. I see the Proclaimers are going to be playing a concert in Perth May 30th.

Zurf I just checked out Rocky Top  on Youtube I love their harmonies and fast moving banjo. Thank you for introducing me to that song and the Osborne Brothers.

Here is an attachment John Prine and Iris DeMent performing Milwaukee Here I Come. A song I like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_siuu6eu6k