Songs about Duluth Places/Neighborhoods
By edgeways on Jul 27, 2011 in Help Wanted, Music
So, awhile back there was a whole hour on KUMD where a couple ner’de’wels played songs about or mentioning Duluth. Next question: How many songs can people name that mention places or neighborhoods, in Duluth. I’ve got five, but there must be more.
Ready
Set
Go
We broached this topic in general a few years ago. Here’s the link for songs with “Duluth” in the lyrics or title.
As for specific places or neighborhoods, I’ll submit Giljunko’s song, “St. Paul Caves” with its line, “We fought the punks from Duluth East.”
How about every Giljunko song ever? “Gangsta Spur,” “Misbent Life,” “Quinlan’s Nine,” “Raised in the Ruins” (now a Little Black Books song). However, I think local bands should be exempt.
“Lake of Fire” by the Meat Puppets is a good national band to reference.
Yeah I knew about the post about Duluth songs, and I suspect that’s what inspired Christine and Paul’s radio theme.
I’ve got down Yester’s “Hunters Park”, Black-eyed Snakes’ “Hillside Stomp,” the Little Black Books’ “East Hillside Freeze Out,” Al Sparkhawk’s “How the Weather Comes Over the Central Hillside” and Leon Raba’s “Michigan Street.”
“St Paul Caves” is good, I missed that one.
I’m all right with local bands … just not everything from one or two bands.
Hot Shot: I think we’d be hard-pressed to find many references to specific Duluth places/neighborhoods if we didn’t count local bands. The Meat Puppets song you mentioned doesn’t reference any specific part of Duluth, only Duluth in general. In that sense, it’s perfect for the previous 2009 post, but not this one.
“Lake of Fire” by Nirvana.
“Fourth Street” by Swimming With Nancy
Vinnie and the Stardusters’ “Come to Duluth.”
“Broken Hearts & Oxygen” by the Branditos is an awesome song that references Pizza Lucé and Last Chance Liquor.
The only recording I’ve heard of this song is the live version on Beaner’s Central: One Week Live 9. After the song, frontman Brandon Swanson mentions the Rustic Bar, which I guess counts as a third local reference, even though it’s not actually part of the song.
Charlie Parr, “Jefferson Street Express”
Bob Dylan, “Something There Is About You” (‘walkin’ the hills of old duluth’), perhaps a stretch
Ryan van Slooten, “Lakeside”
Father Hennepin, “I Like It in Duluth,” (‘let’s head down to the norshor’)
ATF / Jamie Ness, “The Duluth Song”
Portrait of a Drowned Man, “The Marina is Too Shallow”
Black-Eyed Snakes, “Hillside Stomp”
Charlie Parr, “Adrift in Lake Superior at Sunrise”
Haley Bonar, “The Water” (okay, so this one doesn’t exactly reference duluth, but it just feels so much like looking outside a downtown window in winter at icy water on the lake)
Fred Tyson, “Under the Boardwalk” (sort of)
Crew Jones, “Memory of Me” (Highway 35 from Duluth to the cities, ice-fishing near something that I can’t pronounce), “Chapter 13″ (Leif Erikson Park?), “Swimming Hole” (Lester River?), “Who’s Beach” (actual place up the shore, references many places up there, including Beaver Bay, a Finnish restaurant with a crying waitress, also possibly Leif Erikson Park though maybe a different ship, Windigo Lodge, the River Brule, also “the cobblestones and the seagulls” -- obviously duluth),
Charlie Parr, “Mahtowa Stomp” (Mahtowa)
Boomchucks, “Hillsiders”
Gil Junko, “My Soul’s in the Mail” (‘Highway 35, it’s cold at night’)
Jim Hall, i think there’s a song about Canal Park, don’t remember which
Jamie Ness has a song about $20 in your pocket and a million dollar view
Pert Near Sandstone (uh, Sandstone, no?)
but as mentioned, all hail vinnie & the stardusters, “duluth”
bob dylan, “desolation row.” duluth & down highway 61 / mississippi river = desolation row.
“Desolation Row” makes obvious reference to the lynchings in Duluth, but that’s an event in history rather than a neighborhood or specific place.
We’re going to need Edgeways to step in and set up some ground rules for what makes the official list. Do the songs have to mention a Duluth location by name or merely allude to it? Does referencing a Duluth personality, like former KDLH-TV news anchor Liz Brummond, count? Or are we sticking with just places?
Matt Ray and Those Damn Horses -- Locust Street
I got one called “Chester Bowl Strut.” Recorded at Sacred Heart but not released to the general public as of yet.
My point about “Desolation Row” is that I interpret desolation row as being the path from Duluth itself down south. “Lady and I look out tonight on desolation row” I imagine Abe Zimmerman + his dog looking out on Lake Avenue as the crowds gather. Obviously this is interpretation and a stretch.
What I am looking for is actual mention of places in _Duluth_, Superior. So, while “Desolation Row” is a great song I wouldn’t count it. I think songs that mention Duluth-area persons would also be fun but would be a separate list. Likewise songs referencing regional small towns.
Dylan -- Hwy 61 Revisited
Tangier 57 -- Moorish Room
Related side note: I wonder if Dylan ever has fun and sings it, “walkin’ the hills of New Duluth.”
“Blue Lite Special” -- Fattypants. It’s about the confusion of West End / West Duluth. God forbid you fuck those up.
moe. -- Bring you Down … first line of the song
Roads are always tricky, specially highways as they stretch on for so long. I always got the impression that HWY 61 was more about the rural areas, could well be wrong mind you, but it’s more regional then Duluth imo.
Moorish room yeah, absolutely ++
c-freak, absolutely, man I dread the day serious men and women show up at my door to “explain” something.
Equal Xchange has a song mentioning Lee’s Pizza.
I believe someone at the Duluth Library took it upon themselves to publish a book of Duluth songs. This was in the mid seventies when the John Berquist of the Moose Wallow Ramblers wrote and recorded the song “I like it in Duluth.”
There was also a song called the “Fireproof Carp” that my first string band the Heelstring Nation used to play … a song about the asbestos from Silver Bay mining that used to flow into Lake Superior. I’d check with the Library -- it was something like Duluth Ditty songbook?
I always prefer to think that “Seven Bridges Road” by the Eagles is about ours rather than the one in Montgomery, Alabama.
The book Theinone is referring to is The Duluth Ditty Bag: Songs About the Zenith City, published by the Duluth Public Library in 1976 and edited by Biz White. I’ve had a copy checked out for about a month now. It must be time to bring it back.
Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
I missed the specifications.
“Hillside” by the Boomchucks is another great tune.
“Superior Crimes” by Equal Xchange references the other side of the bridge.
The Keep Aways -- “Hillside”
It’s about basement shows in Duluth.
“It starts with an ‘A’ and ends with an ‘R,’ and I did it to your sister behind the Shish Ka Bar.”
The Fractals have a song called “Woodland Boys” on their latest album.
Christmas City of the North! There is another one from the 60s that I will have to look up.
Not a song, but I got a kick out of Larry David mentioning Duluth in an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm (the one where he becomes a car salesman). I guess television/movie references to Duluth could be a whole other thread.
As of about a month ago, the Duluth Public Library had copies of The Duluth Ditty Bag book for sale. I bought one then, and I believe they still had more copies available.
Whenever the subject of Duluth references in movies comes up we have to remind people this exists:
What about Merv Griffin and the “Christmas City” song.
“Duluth, Minnesnowta” by hip hop artist Good Knight. Local artist, now living in the Twin Cities. His CD can be found at Electric Fetus. several tracks mention neighborhoods and places in Duluth.
“Christmas City” shouldn’t count. The only specific place mentioned is “Midtown” which isn’t even an actual Duluth neighborhood.
The last word in the song Christmas City IS Duluth! You need to go get your 45rpm out Barrett and give it a listen!
You need to read the rules of this thread, Tim! The word Duluth isn’t good enough!
pish-posh
It seems pretty simple to me:
There is an older list of “Songs with ‘Duluth’ in the lyrics or title,” and there is this list of “Songs about Duluth Places/Neighborhoods.”
If a song mentions Duluth it belongs on the former list. If a song mentions something like Morgan Park or Curly’s Bar it belongs on the latter list.
One my new album “Numbers Station,” I was thinking about Duluth. Does that count?
TimK has struck it. Next we’ll have songs “inspired” by Duluth, like Kottke’s “The Ice Field.” But let’s finish up here first.
In the early 1900s, Duluth was trying to bolster its manufacturing and consumer goods, one part of which was to vigorously encourage Duluthians to purchase Duluth based products. On October 31, 1912, the ‘city fathers’ staged a big ‘Duluth Home Products Dinner’ at the Auditorium. With speakers like Congdon, Washburn, Denfeld, Craig, and others, the Duluth bigwigs were out in full force, surely feeling their wealth & oats.
One part of the dinner included 12 ‘spasms’ (their term): popular songs with words changed to Duluth oriented references… as a way to apparently have participatory fun in boostering Duluth made goods.
Check out the whole program (located & retrieved from the Northeast MN Historical Center at the UMD Library at http://umdfarm.pbworks.com/f/NEMHC%20S3065f6%20Commercial%20Club%201912%20Home%20Products%20Dinner.pdf…. it is full of Duluth references in the remade songs of the day…
BUT, I can’t resist the following example, Spasm 3, sung to the tune of “My Bonnie”:
Queen of the Cities
Duluth is the Queen of the Cities
Duluth is the Queen of the West
Duluth is the best place to trade in
Just try her and she’ll do the rest
Try dear, to buy here,
Break off the habit to roam, to roam,
Plz try before you die,
To leave part of your money at home.
Try this website for the entire program: if it doesn’t work, hit the ‘go home’ tab on the site you end up on, scroll down to UMD Farm/SAP@UMD Resources section, and hit on the NEMHC S3065f6 Commercial Club 1912 Home Products Dinner.pdf tab… sorry for the maze…
http://umdfarm.pbworks.com/f/NEMHC%20S3065f6%20Commercial%20Club%201912%20Home%20Products%20Dinner.pdf
The Tisdales song “On A Swim” references the Cascade apartments.