New York City has been a cultural and professional Shangri-La for over two hundred years. Indeed, people have been traveling to this rough-and-tumble island city to achieve their dreams for centuries. From its historic musical institutions, like Carnegie Hall, to its significance as a pop music hotbed, New York City has long been a common source of inspiration among composers, and the songs of the 1960s and 70s were no exception.
These tracks painted such carefree, enticing, and at times romantic portraits of the city that if you didn’t already live in New York City, you’d be desperately wishing you did.
Videos by American Songwriter
“Summer In The City” by The Lovin’ Spoonful
Summer days in the city can feel oppressively hot with all that concrete and steel reflecting the sun’s rays. But just as The Lovin’ Spoonful argue in their 1966 track “Summer In The City”, city summer nights are virtually unmatched. Indeed, the days might be miserable, but that only makes the post-sundown payoff that much more satisfying.
“At night, it’s a different world / go out and find a girl / Come on, come on, and dance all night / despite the heat, it’ll be alright.”
“Saturday In The Park” by Chicago
In the center of Manhattan, Central Park offers a welcome reprieve from toasty concrete sidewalks and white-hot skyscraper reflections. Chicago’s 1972 track, “Saturday In The Park”, captures a carefree afternoon in the city park. The lyrics were simple descriptions of everyday life, which is arguably what made the song so pleasantly relatable.
“Funny days in the park, every day’s the Fourth of July / People reaching, really touching / a real celebration waiting for us all.”
“Chelsea Morning” by Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell managed to romanticize something as seemingly mundane as waking up in an apartment in New York City with this 1969 track. Although “Chelsea Morning” first appeared on Mitchell’s second album, Clouds, she had actually written the song years earlier. The track uses highly descriptive imagery to make everyday scenes from an early-20-something’s apartment feel magical.
“Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning and the first thing that I knew / there was milk and toast and honey and a bowl of oranges too / And the light poured in like butterscotch and stuck to all my senses.”
“Spanish Harlem Incident” by Bob Dylan
Though Bob Dylan would later claim he didn’t know the true origin of “Spanish Harlem Incident”, his song from Another Side Of Bob Dylan recalled a passing encounter with a beautiful woman with an awfully convincing level of clarity. The 1964 song conjured images of falling in love in Spanish Harlem during a steamy New York City summer, which somehow makes all the hot weather and hotter tempers all the more worth it.
“The hands of Harlem cannot hold you to its heat / Your temperature is too hot for tamin’ / Your flaming feet are burnin’ up the street.”
Photo by Charlie Gillett Collection/Redferns