By Don Jacobson

In this installment of Chicago In Song, two great country singer/songwriters highlight one of the city’s most characteristic portrayals in song lyrics – its status as a magnet for poor, often homeless, migrants. Call them tramps, hobos, bums or economic refugees, Chicago’s continuing attraction to the country’s (and the world’s) down-and-out gets an artistic workout from Merle Haggard and Dwight Yoakam.
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Merle Haggard/I Take a Lot of Pride In What I Am
Usually when we’re talking about Chicago’s place of infamy in song lyrics in this space, it’s something along the lines of poverty, despair or some other offshoot of misery. One rich vein in that category that we look for the first time here is the city’s longtime identification with homelessness, courtesy of Merle Haggard and his 1969 classic, “I Take a Lot of Pride in What I Am.”

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Posted on February 1, 2010

By Don Jacobson

Boy, those classic country guys sure seem partial to using Chicago in their song lyrics. This time in Chicago In Song, two more of them, Lester Flatt and David Allan Coe, trot out the city in their ditties, in one case referencing Chicago’s supreme position as the trucking capital of the world, and in the other . . . well, as a drug-ridden hellhole.
I know. You just can’t escape the typecasting.

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Posted on November 15, 2008

By Don Jacobson

Today, a truly special Chicago In Song: We take a look at the signature song of an extremely popular Illinois rock artist who recently died of a tragically preventable disease – a heartfelt ode to his beloved father that is adored by millions of this musician’s fans around the world. And we tell you why it sucks.

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Posted on May 20, 2008

By Don Jacobson

In this special edition of Chicago In Song, we take an in-depth look at one song from The Hold Steady and see how it illustrates the connection to what could be the ultimate source of the ubiquitous Chicago-bashing in modern song lyrics and pop culture – our very own Nelson Algren.
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The Hold Steady/Chicago Seemed Tired Last Night
The Hold Steady is “officially” from Brooklyn, but it still seems, even after a decade or so of living there, that the vast majority of frontman Craig Finn’s dense and symbolic lyrics are still rather specifically about the Twin Cities, where he’s from. In “Chicago Seemed Tired Last Night,” though, he takes that propensity and shows that he also knows a thing or two about the Windy City, specifically about its literary patron saint, and mixing up the geographical references. He succeeds at both. And, really, this is a very special song and Finn is a very special songwriter because, if for no other reason, he’s one of the very few lyricists I’ve come across that references Chicago as something other than a horrific hellhole.

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Posted on November 19, 2007

By Don Jacobson

In this edition of Chicago In Song, we have no trouble finding songwriters who say they’d rather be somewhere else but are stuck here, more or less against their will. Some cope by getting drunk and eating donuts while in Lakeview, others by complaining about O’Hare. Some even take midnight swims in el lago.
Anything, I guess, that helps you work out the scars you inevitably get from your Chicago experience.

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Posted on October 1, 2007

By Don Jacobson

Most blues and rhythm and blues songs prior to the 1970s – when Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye and James Brown pioneered a socially conscious black music – rarely had any topical references in them. Thus, references to Chicago in early R&B and soul music, even from records made in the city (and there were tens of thousands of them) are not commonplace. The geographic references mentioned in the following records seem ordinary but they are invested with a lot of meaning for the listener, who can vividly see and acutely hear the images and sounds conjured from the simple references.
Snooky and Moody’s Boogie/Snooky Pryor and Moody Jones
This downhome blues number from 1949 swings with verve, and Snooky Pryor with his piercingly sharp harp sound blows with elan. Guitarist Moody Jones strums with a robust boogie beat. The number is mostly instrumental, but Pryor talks the lyrics in places, opening with an evocative reference to his neighborhood:
One day
I was walking down Sedgwick Street
I heard a boogie right ’round the corner
Boys, it took me off my feet
And I had to boogie, too.
At 941 N. Sedgwick, Chester and Clara Scales operated the Northside Playland and Record Shop, and owned the Planet label that released “Boogie.” The shop was right in the midst of a small African-American community, at the intersection of Sedgwick and Division, with several blues clubs nearby, notably the Square Deal at 230 W. Division. Snooky and Moody, as did many transplanted southerners, were not yet union members and played on the street instead of in the clubs. “Boogie” could have been about them.

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Posted on August 13, 2007

By Don Jacobson

In this edition of Chicago In Song, Sinatra’s depiction of the city as a sophisticated land of martini-swillers is co-opted by a bluegrass hillbilly; Izzy Stradlin feels safer on the streets of the Windy City than on stage with Guns ‘N’ Roses; and a Mountain Goat (not a billy goat) curses the Cubs in the lyrics of popular song.

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Posted on June 4, 2007

By Don Jacobson

Stop the presses! We find song lyrics that actually put Chicago in a good light. I guess if you stick with something long enough, you’ll see everything. Also, a violent song about a violent town that eerily predicted a violent act by its writer, all in this episode of Chicago In Song.

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Posted on April 17, 2007

By Don Jacobson

As regular readers of Chicago In Song know, my journey down the byways of the city’s references in popular music has borne some bitter fruit. Initially hoping there would be some kind of diversity in its portrayal, what I’ve discovered is that Chicago holds a fairly uniform place in the imaginations of the nation’s songwriters. The fact the city usually represents everything that’s wrong with the world hasn’t changed too much along the way; only the level of loathing seems to vary a bit from song to song, artist to artist, genre to genre.
As this exploration has shown, the city has been bashed in the blues, old-time country, ’60s classic rock, alternative and college rock, you name it. Now we can add bouncy post-punk to the list. And this time it’s personal because it’s coming from the locals. The Lawrence Arms cover the city and Lucky Boys Confusion take on the outlying areas.

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Posted on March 16, 2007

By Don Jacobson

Daniel Lanois’ artsy take on Chicago meets Hank Williams’ traditional take on hellfire and the city.
Rocky World/Daniel Lanois
It’s not too often that Chicago is included in song lyrics of the truly artistic stripe. In most cases, I have to say, the city is called out in songs with the simplest of intentions. It’s kind of a sad state of affairs. Despite some apparent progress in sophistication that the city has made since, say, the 1920s, Chicago as a lyrical metaphor still seems to appeal to songwriters who merely want to employ its image to bash across some simple message, usually having something to do with pain, loss, human depravity or some combination thereof. Every time I see a song lyric that refers to Chicago as a gangster haven or as some kind of poverty-stricken wasteland (and there are so many), I have to shake my head and say, now I know how it feels to be typecast.
That brings me to “Rocky World” by Daniel Lanois. How refreshing it is to find a lyrical reference to Chicago that’s artsy enough to make me scratch my head and wonder, at least for a few seconds, what it really means. Basically, Lanois name-checks the city in what I believe is an articulation of a Canadian’s vision of the United States as something like a battlefield where you can win a living but lose everything that really matters.

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Posted on January 2, 2007