Soundtrack Challenge #3: Songs to Walk Through New York To
No Empire State of Mind by Alicia Keys
New York? Deja vu York!
I touched down at JFK in April this year for my first visit to the Big Apple. Although, from the moment I hailed a yellow taxi, I somehow felt like I’d always been here.
Everywhere I turned, something familiar. Over the road from my hotel, the New Yorker, was Madison Square Gardens. Home that weekend to Olivia Rodrigo. Looming in the background, beyond the subway entrance to Penn Street Station, the iconic Empire State Building.
Not far from here, on Fifth and 42nd, I’m on my tip-toes, stroking the paw of Patience, a marble lion outside the New York Public Library.
I loved you in Ghostbusters.
I’m surely only a day or two away from being able to accurately help navigate tourists around the city, breaking only to sip a smoothie from Joe & The Juice in Greenwich Village and soak up ‘the vibe’.
Since I came back, I often find myself mentally strolling the streets of Manhattan. And while you do hear Alicia Key’s Empire State Of Mind pretty much everywhere (although it’s most prevalent around Times Square and Central Park), I have been giving a lot of thought to songs I would like to walk around New York to.
So here we go:
The Boss - James Brown
Walking through NYC deserves a beat with swagger. And this song delivers in truckloads. The line “Paid the costs to be the boss” screams a life served rising through the ranks, butting heads with the system and earning your place. Powering your way through the city streets with this thumping bassline in your ears is a moment you won’t forget in a hurry.
Red Right Hand - Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds
If anyone can paint a picture of a dark, enigmatic character, it’s Nick Cave. This song has been on everything from the Scream soundtrack, to being used as the Peaky Blinders theme tune.
Another awesome bassline powers the lyrics - all about greed and corruption. The sinister, shadowy underbelly of a city that you only glimpse fleetingly.
“Take a little walk to the edge of town and go across the track” put this song firmly in my head as I walked The High Line from Gansevoort Street all the way to Hudson Yards.
You Said Something - PJ Harvey
Polly Harvey’s album released in 2000, “Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea” is full of snapshot love-letters to New York City, although she has always claimed that this isn’t her “New York” record.
“You Said Something” is one of them. It’s a feeling that took me to NYC before I’d ever set foot there.
“On a rooftop in Brooklyn.
At One in the morning.
Watching the lights flash
In Manhattan.
I see five bridges.
The Empire State Building.
And you said something.
That I’ve never forgotten.”
Absolutely beautiful song. I hear a real, understated anger in “I’ve never forgotten.” It always makes me wonder who that person was and what they said.
But this time out, I have to go with:
Back On The Block - Fun Lovin’ Criminals
This is just gorgeous. It feels a world away from “Scooby Snacks” and “Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em”. So grown up.
I heard this when I was about 21, and it made my heart yearn for New York. I simply had to go there, because of this song. There’s something about the horns - the distinct fusion of hip-hop, jazz and funk. To me, this is what it sounded like just to be in New York.
“The block” is symbolic of the familiarity of home after some time away. The narrative is about someone who’s experienced a life of street crime, owned the experiences that come with that and walked out the other side. Surviving on their street-smarts.
This is the song that transports me immediately back there in my head.
It’s cool, confident and smooth. Managing to be both gritty and polished at the same time.
A lot like NYC.
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