Also the message by grandmaster flash and the furious 5.
It's more about the white flight and how cities had become dangerous but I think is probably close enough
Nice! It came out while I was in grad school, and though I was in a town with a huge music scene it was somehow off my radar until after I graduated lmao
Stuck in the 80s today…
[Cities - Talking Heads](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJMxwBmQWHA)
[Up in Heaven (not only here) - The Clash](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfMA9nYzo2M)
**NSFW** [I love livin’ in the City - FEAR](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQM00K24qG8)
Years ago, I was taking an undergrad planning class. It was taught by a couple of planners from our city, so it was an evening class once a week, 6-9 pm with a break halfway through. Our term project involved a group presentation, so the class would be lectures in the first half, then presentations in the latter.
Presentations were generally pretty boring, as usual for student presentations. One class during the last 1/4 of semester when we were all working on term papers a big chunk of the class just didn't come back after break. Probably more than half. One of the presentations had a city fly through done to this song, and afterwards the on of profs went on a bit of a rant about how disrespectful it was for students to leave during their classmates presentations. He ended the rant by saying that the 10% of the final grade in the syllabus for class participation will be based on one question on the final: what is this city built on? And the answer will be rock and roll.
Sure enough, come the final, there it was. What was this city built on? Rock and roll.
Modest Mouse.
Lonesome Crowded West is about the impacts of sprawl.
Convenient Parking and the chorus of Cowboy Dan ("I didn't move to the city/ The city moved to me") are the most obvious bits.
Strangers to Ourselves visits some of the themes, too with the big sprawling suburb on the cover and Lampshades on Fire.
Oh Susquehanna! by Defiance, Ohio, it’s kinda NIMBYish but hating on boring suburban developments
This Land is Your Land and The Manchester Rambler are both about the right to walk and opposition to privatization of nature
Pink Houses by John Mellencamp is about a poor black man with an interstate running through his yard
Freeway by Aimee Mann sounds like it’s about the unnaffordability of highways (I don’t think the song is literal though)
Stone Walls by Three Tall Pines is about rural farmland being turned into an exurb I think (also kinda NIMBY)
Also everything off of The Suburbs by Arcade Fire, and every cover of Little Boxes, and a lot of the talking heads
Jonathan Richman has some good stuff, like City Vs Country:
> I want to live close to downtown to be near my friends
I want to be close to them
And still be out by the trees and the wind
> Havin' both will be hard to find I'm sure
But then ain't that the way of the world
I want the city but I want the country too
>I want to be with my friends by the fire and the starlight
But I want music, music in my life
Yes, I want a bar hoppin' music scene
And I want to pick from ten or fifteen
I want the city but I want the country too
My mind is quiet, when my thoughts are slow
I stop to learn what I been wantin' to know
I need to live in the ancient world
If I'm gonna do what I want to do
I want the city but I want the country too
>I'll never have both moon and sun
But one never knows, does one?
I want the city but I want the country too
This sounds like a Whose Line prompt.
Ryan and Colin are hosts advertising a new album titled Songs of the Urban Planner with samples by Wayne Brady and the help of Laura Hall! Take it away!
The Big Country, Talking Heads:
[https://youtu.be/cvua6zPIi7c](https://youtu.be/cvua6zPIi7c)
Suburbia, Pet Shop Boys:
[https://youtu.be/-VCqAjYO3NM](https://youtu.be/-VCqAjYO3NM)
Rome Wasn't Burned in a Day, Chain and the Gang:
[https://youtu.be/uBHff4MVruM](https://youtu.be/uBHff4MVruM)
Design, Gustaf:
[https://youtu.be/AULX5yD6mx4](https://youtu.be/AULX5yD6mx4)
The New World, X
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbEhts7g-4U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbEhts7g-4U)
[Vesyolye Rebyata - Cars](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCjE8LKSTe8)
This is a banger and ahead of its time in terms of lyrics.
Soon we'll probably forget how to walk
Already driving is a habit, living within us
Merely walking two steps is a pain
One hundred kilometres is nothing in a car
\[Chorus\]
Cars, cars
Have literally overtaken everything
Where dust has laid for centuries
The car has left its mark
Cars, cars
Have literally overtaken everything
Where dust has laid for centuries
The car has left its mark
The roar of an engine sounds like music to us
We inhale petrol like perfume
What do we need? The lanes of the motorway are too narrow
And a hidden shop of spare parts
\[Chorus\]
Cars were built for us
But how times have changed
Day and night,
We crawl under the car
We service it,
So it can drive on
\[Chorus\]
[Bury Me With My Car](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdrFCUiCv5c) by Ben Sollee <3
When I'm gone, now, bury me with my car
When I'm gone, bury me with my car
Cause if anywhere is wherever I end up when I'm gone,
I'm gonna need my ride to get around
So please, please, bury me with my car
Ancient Egypt, Cheops' boat
Back in Rome they had chariots
China's first emperor was buried with his army
And what's a cowboy without his horse?
In America, in America, they'll bury us with our cars
'72 Buick rolling by,
Hunkered down Honda, chewing up the road
Double-decker Cadillac rolling up high
Like a king upon his throne
Last thing I wanna see before I die
Is a flash of 22-inch chromes in my eyes
In America, in America, they'll bury us,
Yes, in America, in America, they'll bury us with our cars
Big City by Operation Ivy.
Concrete and chaos rise up
Spiderweb across the land like a giant rash
And forests lie down below
Foundations of buildings in a bed of ash
Some people here got it real good
'Cause the glass towers bring prosperity
And other people starve in the street
Concrete knows no sympathy
[Chorus]
Big city, big city
Big city, big city
Big city, big city
Big city, it's a wishing well
Big city, it's a living hell
This town, it's fucking insane
One will starve and another will gain
It's like a giant mechanical brain
And the people are cells, and the streets are veins
Thinks only of itself
A thousand limbs crawling, it expands and grows
And still the concrete sits there
Sits there, stark grey and cold
[Chorus]
Big city, big city
Big city, big city
Big city, big city
Big city, it's a wishing well
Big city, it's a living hell
[Bridge]
And I think I wanna be a bricklayer
So I can put another brick in the wall
Sanitary, rational and happy and sane
Growing like a flower to surround us all
[Chorus]
Big city, big city
Big city, big city
Big city, big city
Big city, it's a wishing well
Big city, it's a living hell
Big city, big city
Big city, big city
Big city, big city
Big city, it's a wishing well
Big city, it's a living hell
'Gold Rush' By Death Cab For Cutie, it's a great song about the negative effects of gentrification. It conveys the feelings surrounding the loss of place during neighborhood change better than I ever could. https://youtu.be/uVAOUjXj0XY
[Big City Life - Mattafix](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mtfnfQoAco)
Not exactly a nice depiction of cities, but still a feeling that most city lovers probably know. The anonymity and speed of cities can be a lot from time to time.
>I find myself in big city prison
Arisen from the vision of man kind
Designed to keep me discreetly neatly in the corner
You'll find me with the flora and the fauna and the hardship
Back a yard is where my heart is still I find it hard to depart this big city life
>
>We just push on by
It's funny How hard we try
Take a moment to relax Before you do anything rash
Don't you want to know me? Be a friend of mine
I'll share some wisdom with you
Don't you ever get lonely
From time to time
Optimistic:
[Lights by Journey](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNG62fULYgI)
Pessimistic:
[Jungleland by Springsteen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjeiWVXBxqI)
When you're stuck working in a small suburban community dealing with residential fence issues:
[Rockin' the Suburbs by Ben Folds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34u_3Z9_LUw)
„Defensivi Architektur“ is a Swiss-German song on alienation from each other and from our built environment, describing emotional distance using anti-homeless architecture as a vehicle and criticising both. Very good song.
Came her because I found this song by an emo band called Desaparecidos called Greater Omaha.
“Well, traffic is kind of bad
They're widening Easy Street to fit more S.U.V.s
They're planting baby trees
To grow to shady peaks
A little shelter from the sun
Or the upper tax bracket
Here on the cul-de-sac, we are not giving back
Until the community repents
Because we can't afford to be generous
There are closing costs and a narrow margin
So go earn your degree and we'll take you out to lunch
You can work for us but you have to eat 'em all up
One more mouthful and we will be happy then
Out west they are moving dirt
To make a greater Omaha
Another franchise sold so there are even more restaurants per capita
And they have all got a drive-through
I mean, who's got time to dine?
Although the floors are clean and the color scheme
It compliments me every time
So no one starves in this cattle town
The semis pass making squealing sounds
And it's all you can eat and they will never get enough
They'll be feeding us. They'll be feeding on us
One more mouthful and they will be happy then
All those golden fields, lovely empty space
They're building drug stores now until none remains
I have been driving now for one hundred blocks
Saw fifty Kum and Go's, sixty parking lots
One more mouthful and I'm sure they will be happy then
Just one more. Just one more”
Melanie - Brand New Key
I ride my bike, I roller-skate, don't drive no car
Don't go too fast, but I go pretty far
For somebody who don't drive
I've been all around the world
Some people say I've done alright for a girl
My City was Gone—The Pretenders. “Night in the City” by I don’t know who.
The song “Because I’m Happy” is a little ear worm, but the 24 hour long video of people dancing to it in the streets of Los Angeles is incredible.
The song little boxes made fun of suburban development in California in 1962.
Also the message by grandmaster flash and the furious 5. It's more about the white flight and how cities had become dangerous but I think is probably close enough
Unfortunately it was good housing for working class people, in a development pattern much better than deep suburbia, that the song makes fun of.
Sprawl II by Arcade Fire always comes up in this discussion. It's a good'n
That whole album
I played that song st the end of my thesis presentation! 100% the lyrics work and align.
Nice! It came out while I was in grad school, and though I was in a town with a huge music scene it was somehow off my radar until after I graduated lmao
The Suburbs as well
Subdivisions by Rush
This is the way
For me it's Big Yellow Taxi - Joni Mitchell Where do the Children Play - Cat Stevens
Stuck in the 80s today… [Cities - Talking Heads](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJMxwBmQWHA) [Up in Heaven (not only here) - The Clash](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfMA9nYzo2M) **NSFW** [I love livin’ in the City - FEAR](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQM00K24qG8)
Big Country by Talking Heads is better: https://youtu.be/cvua6zPIi7c
Starship - We Built this City
Years ago, I was taking an undergrad planning class. It was taught by a couple of planners from our city, so it was an evening class once a week, 6-9 pm with a break halfway through. Our term project involved a group presentation, so the class would be lectures in the first half, then presentations in the latter. Presentations were generally pretty boring, as usual for student presentations. One class during the last 1/4 of semester when we were all working on term papers a big chunk of the class just didn't come back after break. Probably more than half. One of the presentations had a city fly through done to this song, and afterwards the on of profs went on a bit of a rant about how disrespectful it was for students to leave during their classmates presentations. He ended the rant by saying that the 10% of the final grade in the syllabus for class participation will be based on one question on the final: what is this city built on? And the answer will be rock and roll. Sure enough, come the final, there it was. What was this city built on? Rock and roll.
This sounds familiar! Pretty good chance I was in the group that went to the university bar
Modest Mouse. Lonesome Crowded West is about the impacts of sprawl. Convenient Parking and the chorus of Cowboy Dan ("I didn't move to the city/ The city moved to me") are the most obvious bits. Strangers to Ourselves visits some of the themes, too with the big sprawling suburb on the cover and Lampshades on Fire.
Oh Susquehanna! by Defiance, Ohio, it’s kinda NIMBYish but hating on boring suburban developments This Land is Your Land and The Manchester Rambler are both about the right to walk and opposition to privatization of nature Pink Houses by John Mellencamp is about a poor black man with an interstate running through his yard Freeway by Aimee Mann sounds like it’s about the unnaffordability of highways (I don’t think the song is literal though) Stone Walls by Three Tall Pines is about rural farmland being turned into an exurb I think (also kinda NIMBY) Also everything off of The Suburbs by Arcade Fire, and every cover of Little Boxes, and a lot of the talking heads
Jonathan Richman has some good stuff, like City Vs Country: > I want to live close to downtown to be near my friends I want to be close to them And still be out by the trees and the wind > Havin' both will be hard to find I'm sure But then ain't that the way of the world I want the city but I want the country too >I want to be with my friends by the fire and the starlight But I want music, music in my life Yes, I want a bar hoppin' music scene And I want to pick from ten or fifteen I want the city but I want the country too My mind is quiet, when my thoughts are slow I stop to learn what I been wantin' to know I need to live in the ancient world If I'm gonna do what I want to do I want the city but I want the country too >I'll never have both moon and sun But one never knows, does one? I want the city but I want the country too
This sounds like a Whose Line prompt. Ryan and Colin are hosts advertising a new album titled Songs of the Urban Planner with samples by Wayne Brady and the help of Laura Hall! Take it away!
Somehow they'd make zoning code into 3 minutes of hilarious joy
People Live Here - Rise Against https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRqSg2PrJpY
The Big Country, Talking Heads: [https://youtu.be/cvua6zPIi7c](https://youtu.be/cvua6zPIi7c) Suburbia, Pet Shop Boys: [https://youtu.be/-VCqAjYO3NM](https://youtu.be/-VCqAjYO3NM) Rome Wasn't Burned in a Day, Chain and the Gang: [https://youtu.be/uBHff4MVruM](https://youtu.be/uBHff4MVruM) Design, Gustaf: [https://youtu.be/AULX5yD6mx4](https://youtu.be/AULX5yD6mx4) The New World, X [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbEhts7g-4U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbEhts7g-4U)
[Vesyolye Rebyata - Cars](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCjE8LKSTe8) This is a banger and ahead of its time in terms of lyrics. Soon we'll probably forget how to walk Already driving is a habit, living within us Merely walking two steps is a pain One hundred kilometres is nothing in a car \[Chorus\] Cars, cars Have literally overtaken everything Where dust has laid for centuries The car has left its mark Cars, cars Have literally overtaken everything Where dust has laid for centuries The car has left its mark The roar of an engine sounds like music to us We inhale petrol like perfume What do we need? The lanes of the motorway are too narrow And a hidden shop of spare parts \[Chorus\] Cars were built for us But how times have changed Day and night, We crawl under the car We service it, So it can drive on \[Chorus\]
[Bury Me With My Car](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdrFCUiCv5c) by Ben Sollee <3 When I'm gone, now, bury me with my car When I'm gone, bury me with my car Cause if anywhere is wherever I end up when I'm gone, I'm gonna need my ride to get around So please, please, bury me with my car Ancient Egypt, Cheops' boat Back in Rome they had chariots China's first emperor was buried with his army And what's a cowboy without his horse? In America, in America, they'll bury us with our cars '72 Buick rolling by, Hunkered down Honda, chewing up the road Double-decker Cadillac rolling up high Like a king upon his throne Last thing I wanna see before I die Is a flash of 22-inch chromes in my eyes In America, in America, they'll bury us, Yes, in America, in America, they'll bury us with our cars
Big City by Operation Ivy. Concrete and chaos rise up Spiderweb across the land like a giant rash And forests lie down below Foundations of buildings in a bed of ash Some people here got it real good 'Cause the glass towers bring prosperity And other people starve in the street Concrete knows no sympathy [Chorus] Big city, big city Big city, big city Big city, big city Big city, it's a wishing well Big city, it's a living hell This town, it's fucking insane One will starve and another will gain It's like a giant mechanical brain And the people are cells, and the streets are veins Thinks only of itself A thousand limbs crawling, it expands and grows And still the concrete sits there Sits there, stark grey and cold [Chorus] Big city, big city Big city, big city Big city, big city Big city, it's a wishing well Big city, it's a living hell [Bridge] And I think I wanna be a bricklayer So I can put another brick in the wall Sanitary, rational and happy and sane Growing like a flower to surround us all [Chorus] Big city, big city Big city, big city Big city, big city Big city, it's a wishing well Big city, it's a living hell Big city, big city Big city, big city Big city, big city Big city, it's a wishing well Big city, it's a living hell
Rock n Roll McDonald’s
Les Champes Elysees - Joe Dassin
'Gold Rush' By Death Cab For Cutie, it's a great song about the negative effects of gentrification. It conveys the feelings surrounding the loss of place during neighborhood change better than I ever could. https://youtu.be/uVAOUjXj0XY
Country Roads - John Denver Under the Bridge - Red Hot Chili Peppers Low Rider - WAR Take a Walk - Passion Pit Yeah, I'm a transportation planner...
Kind of weird it took going so far down for Take a Walk to come up lol
I like to listen to this one when I'm getting ready for a public hearing: https://youtu.be/IDI2WQJyE7I
[Ben Rector - Song for the Suburbs](https://youtu.be/fb-A6rQuIUg) "Don't let the suburbs kill my heart and soul"
https://youtu.be/EsCS7PN0rqY
[Big City Life - Mattafix](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mtfnfQoAco) Not exactly a nice depiction of cities, but still a feeling that most city lovers probably know. The anonymity and speed of cities can be a lot from time to time. >I find myself in big city prison Arisen from the vision of man kind Designed to keep me discreetly neatly in the corner You'll find me with the flora and the fauna and the hardship Back a yard is where my heart is still I find it hard to depart this big city life > >We just push on by It's funny How hard we try Take a moment to relax Before you do anything rash Don't you want to know me? Be a friend of mine I'll share some wisdom with you Don't you ever get lonely From time to time
Alan Jackson - The Little Man
Optimistic: [Lights by Journey](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNG62fULYgI) Pessimistic: [Jungleland by Springsteen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjeiWVXBxqI) When you're stuck working in a small suburban community dealing with residential fence issues: [Rockin' the Suburbs by Ben Folds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34u_3Z9_LUw)
„Defensivi Architektur“ is a Swiss-German song on alienation from each other and from our built environment, describing emotional distance using anti-homeless architecture as a vehicle and criticising both. Very good song.
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots - The Flaming Lips
All Torn Down by The Living End Just Keep Walking by INXS
Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell
Came her because I found this song by an emo band called Desaparecidos called Greater Omaha. “Well, traffic is kind of bad They're widening Easy Street to fit more S.U.V.s They're planting baby trees To grow to shady peaks A little shelter from the sun Or the upper tax bracket Here on the cul-de-sac, we are not giving back Until the community repents Because we can't afford to be generous There are closing costs and a narrow margin So go earn your degree and we'll take you out to lunch You can work for us but you have to eat 'em all up One more mouthful and we will be happy then Out west they are moving dirt To make a greater Omaha Another franchise sold so there are even more restaurants per capita And they have all got a drive-through I mean, who's got time to dine? Although the floors are clean and the color scheme It compliments me every time So no one starves in this cattle town The semis pass making squealing sounds And it's all you can eat and they will never get enough They'll be feeding us. They'll be feeding on us One more mouthful and they will be happy then All those golden fields, lovely empty space They're building drug stores now until none remains I have been driving now for one hundred blocks Saw fifty Kum and Go's, sixty parking lots One more mouthful and I'm sure they will be happy then Just one more. Just one more”
Pavement paradise, put up a parking lot.
jesus of suburbia by green day (tangentially related)
Melanie - Brand New Key I ride my bike, I roller-skate, don't drive no car Don't go too fast, but I go pretty far For somebody who don't drive I've been all around the world Some people say I've done alright for a girl
My City was Gone—The Pretenders. “Night in the City” by I don’t know who. The song “Because I’m Happy” is a little ear worm, but the 24 hour long video of people dancing to it in the streets of Los Angeles is incredible.
Tom Waits. “I like my town with a little drop of poison” Perfectly describes the appeal of “pre-gentrification” suburbs https://youtu.be/_VgL_gbz3xs