An occasional collection of songs suggested for you using a given theme.
This playlist has the theme of place names around the world - could be a country or a city. So, where I have taken us?
1. Holiday in Cambodia - Dead Kennedy's
A great place to start - and one of the first punk songs I really got into as a teenage in the late 80s. A song that is simultaneously about over-privileged college kids and the US governments failure to act against the genocide being enacted in Cambodia by Pol Pot.
2. Eton Rifles - The Jam
Another one about the privilege of elite - focused on the titular Eton College, one of the most prestigious private schools in England. This song is around these elites versus the neighbouring working class areas, with their high rates of unemployment.
3. Beirut Moon - Stiff Little Fingers
This is a song full of anger and frustration about John McCarthy, who was a hostage in Lebanon at the time. While other countries were working out ways to get their citizens out of captivity, the anger was directed at the UK government, who they felt, were doing nothing - "But if you get caught, you're left to rot - under a Beirut Moon."
4. Spain - The Stranglers
Spain is from 1984's Aural Sculpture album, which saw the band shifting away from the more aggressive tones of their earlier albums.
5. Hersham Boys - Sham 69
This is from Sham 69's third album, The Adventures of the Hersham Boys and was their biggest hit, reaching #6 on the UK charts. A rabble-rousing ode to the local youth and their "lace up boots and corduroys."
6. Dallas - The Flatlanders
"Have you ever seen Dallas from a DC-9 at night?" - so ask The Flatlanders, a Texas band hailing from Lubbock (also well known as being Buddy Holly's hometown). Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely and Butch Hancock made up this country band that aren't particularly well known in the wider world, but are well appreciated inside of music.
Indeed, it was 10,000 Maniacs and David Byrne covering the song on Natalie Merchant's MTV Unplugged swansong, that first alerted me to it. This is a great version from the Austin City Limits tv show.
7. New York, New York - Ryan Adams
As you can see, I have picked not that one - but the one by Ryan Adams.
The song has ended up as an ode to his beloved home city - although the city was more the background for the relationship Adams dissects in the song. The video, eerily enough, was shot just a few days before the 9/11 attacks on the city - so the iconic World Trade Centre stands in the background of many shots, in what must have been one of the last recordings made of it.
8. An Open Letter to NYC - Beastie Boys
Yes - two New York songs in a row.
This one sees the hip hop legends provide us with an affectionate, warts and all, tribute to their city (and it's from the album - To The Five Boroughs). It includes a reference to the events of 9/11.
"I see you're still strong after all that's gone on,
Life long, we dedicate this song,
Just a little something to show some respect,
To the city that blends and mends and tests,
Since 9/11 we're still livin'
And lovin', life we've been given."
9. Jackson - Johnny & June Carter Cash
This is one of Cash's most well known hits, making #2 on the US Country Chart in 1967. The song, about Jackson (though not necessarily the one in Mississippi, according to its writer), was written by Billy Edd Wheeler in 1963. It concerns a married couple who have lost the 'spark' and both think that they will get what they need when they reach Jackson (though not necessarily for a happily ever after ending).
10. We're Not in Kansas - Big Country
One of my favourite's from the second half of Big Country's career (i.e. the 90's). This one featured on 1991's No Place Like Home, before being re-recorded for the following album, Buffalo Skinners.
A proper rock out of a track, that deals with the ongoing issues of racism.
"What did you learn at home today,
Did you learn to hate in the proper way.
Did your liberated parents patronise your friends,
Cos they have enough money, cos they have the right skin."
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