There’s no city out there that serves as a font for creative inspiration like New York. From rap tracks to classic tunes, the Empire State has inspired tons of iconic songs that bring those around the world into the Big Apple. Keep reading for three such tracks.
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“Empire State Of Mind” by JAY-Z feat. Alicia Keys
JAY-Z and Alicia Keys tapped into some magic when they recorded “Empire State of Mind” in 2009. Originally written and produced by Angela Hunte and Jane’t “Jnay” Sewell-Ulepic, the former woman once told Billboard about the origins of the track in an interview.
“My writing partner and I were in London, missing home,” Hunte said. “… We said to ourselves, ‘We complain so much about New York—about the busy streets, about the crowds and the pushing, about the subway system—but I would trade that for anything right now.’ Before we left the hotel that night, we knew we would write a song about our city.”
As for how JAY-Z wound up recording the song, Hunte explained that she and the rapper grew up in the same Brooklyn building, but had never worked together before.
“Not in a million years did I think I’d make this hit for him,” she said. “… You get your hopes up with artists, but then things happen and the record doesn’t make it for whatever reason. But Jay loved the song; it made the album, and it sounds crazy.”
When JAY-Z heard the track, Hunte said, he “loved it and recorded it that night.” The rapper wrote new verses for the song and kept Hunte’s vocals on the hook. When they were asked if another female singer would be a better choice for the part, Hunte suggested Keys.
“She’s never done a record with him, and she also has my same vocal tone. She made the song sound so close to the original,” Hunte said. “She just nailed it and brought it home. It was a great choice.”
Indeed it was, as the song topped the Billboard Hot 100 for five weeks and went on to win two GRAMMYs.
“New York State Of Mind” by Billy Joel
Though Billy Joel never released “New York State of Mind” as a single, the track off his 1976 LP, Turnstiles, became an iconic tune. In a 2010 interview with Howard Stern, Joel revealed that he wrote the track while on a bus heading to the Big Apple.
“It’s the one I wrote in like 15 minutes,” he said. “It was the day I moved back from California to New York. I’m sitting on the bus… and I started scribbling in a notebook. I got to the house where my wife was waiting. I said, ‘I got to write this song right now.’”
Five years later, Joel told Newsday that the song “was about coming back to this place, which I think it really needed, especially back in the mid-’70s, when it was really kind of crappy.”
“A lot of bad things were happening in New York then. There was a lot of crime. Drugs were out of control. The city looked bad; it was really dirty. It almost defaulted financially,” Joel recalled. “It really needed a boost, and I wanted to write an anthem for it.”
The song “took on a whole other meaning” when he performed it at a telethon following the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
“Everybody was just about in tears trying to get through the song,” he recalled. “We did it as blues, rather than doing it as a standard. We played it kind of downbeat and soft and slow, almost like an elegy. It was difficult to get through. I just kept staring at the fireman’s helmet on the piano, and I just kept thinking, ‘Just look at the helmet, just look at the helmet. Don’t think about what you’re feeling right now. Think about the guy who wore that helmet and do the song.’”
“Theme From New York, New York” by Frank Sinatra
Originally recorded by Liza Minnelli for Martin Scorsese’s 1977 film New York, New York, Frank Sinatra’s version of “Theme from New York” became the best-known edition of the track when he covered it two years later. He did so at the insistence of his wife, Barbara Sinatra, The New York Times reported.
According to the outlet, despite a positive response to his version, Sinatra wasn’t easily convinced to record the track. Sinatra historian Jonathan Schwartz, music publisher Frank Military, and Minnelli himself all had to convince him to do so.
Sinatra’s pal Rob Fentress told the outlet that the singer was “pleased” by the recording after he cut the track.
“He wasn’t laughing; he was just smiling slightly,” Fentress recalled. “I’d seen that focused look before.”
The song became inextricably tied to the city. It was played at the end of every New York Yankees game from 1980 to 2025, when the team opted only to use the track after wins. The track is also heard every New Year’s Eve in Times Square after the ball drops.
Like Joel’s track, it became a staple in the city after 9/11. Then, during the COVID-19 pandemic, New Yorkers played the song amid their daily salute to healthcare workers.
Photo by Kevin Mazur/WireImage
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