When hometown pride and the power of music come together, it can create iron-clad connections that cause us to associate classic rock hits with a specific U.S. state or region, even if the bands weren’t actually from there. The folks who live in those geographical areas proudly tout the song as a token of their identity and history. And because the songs are so good, the folks who don’t live there are none the wiser that the artists in question are singing about a place they’ve never lived.
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Here are some of the best examples (our apologies in advance to Louisiana, Mississippi, California, and Indiana).
“Born on the Bayou” by Creedence Clearwater Revival
When Creedence Clearwater Revival released their second album, Bayou Country, they helped popularize a subgenre of rock ‘n’ roll called “swamp rock,” named for the oppressively hot marshes of the deep South in Louisiana, Georgia, and Florida. “Born on the Bayou” was one of the region’s most prominent anthems, despite its songwriter, John Fogerty, spending most of his life in California. As he explained in Finding Fogerty, the CCR frontman said, “I was trying to be a pure writer, no guitar in hand, visualizing and looking at the bare walls of my apartment.”
He said he wrote the song “about a mythical childhood and a heat-filled time, the Fourth of July. I put it in the swamp where, of course, I had never lived.”
“Mississippi Queen” by Mountain
Something about the gritty guitar tone and driving cowbell of Mountain’s “Mississippi Queen” just sounds southern. Although it’s one of the most iconic classic rock songs associated with a specific U.S. state, no one in the band could claim Mississippi as their home turf. Members of Mountain all hailed from the East Coast, primarily New York City, roughly 1,240 miles away from Vicksburg, Mississippi, the city they sing about in the song. Even the track’s co-writer, David Rea, was born in the decidedly northern town of Akron, Ohio.
Nevertheless, the song’s title and dirty, overdriven tone reminiscent of other southern rock bands inextricably tie Mountain’s 1970 one-hit wonder with the Deep South state tucked between Louisiana and Alabama.
“Hollywood Nights” by Bob Seger
While Bob Seger’s “Hollywood Nights” does technically clarify that the narrator is a Midwestern boy on his own, the most memorable part of this 1978 rocker is definitely the chorus that sings about Hollywood nights in those Hollywood hills. The earworm refrain creates a clear connection between Seger and the famous California neighborhood, even though Seger is a long-time Michigander. Of course, to Seger’s credit, he was in California when he wrote the song.
“It’s very seldom that I’m driving in a car and something rolls into my head,” Seger told Classic Rock. “But that song did. I was out in Los Angeles, and I was just beginning to record Stranger In Town. I had a house out in the Hollywood Hills, and I could see the city from my house.”
“Mary Jane’s Last Dance” by Tom Petty
Flyover states with no coastline or major city association tend to cling to whatever iconic songs mention them, even vaguely, and that is certainly true of Tom Petty’s “Mary Jane’s Last Dance.” The opening lines of this classic rock track plant the listener in the U.S. state of Indiana as he sings about a girl who grew up tall and grew up right with them Indiana boys on them Indiana nights. It’s a perfect sound bite for any proud Midwestener, even though Petty is famously from Gainesville, Florida.
The song’s original title, “Indiana Girl,” would have created an even deeper association between Petty and the Hoosier state. But finding it hard to sing, hey, Indiana girl, to the tune of the song’s chorus, Petty eventually switched it to, last dance with Mary Jane.
Photo by Gene Ambo/Shutterstock
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