Talk:List of songs about New York City

Untitled
What about Madonna's song about New York - The city who made her!!! with the comic lyrics "Other cities make me feel like a dork" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.11.81.64 (talk • contribs) 00:38, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Christopher Cross "Arthur's Theme"
I was surprised this was not included. "When you get caught between the moon and New York City…" My suggestion is that it be added. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.73.38.169 (talk) 12:21, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Four Big Rude Jake songs
"East Side Jive", "Gotham City Serenade", "7th Avenue" and "Brooklyn Blue" by Big Rude Jake should all be on this list! SweetSuzanne (talk) 20:08, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Elliott Smith's Alphabet Town
Is this about Alphabet City or totally unrelated? First line is: "Alphabet city is haunted" ... --Tothebarricades 20:13, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

---I came on here to inquire about "Bled White," the line "Rose City on the 409" is pretty clearly about Portland. Rufusgriffin (talk) 02:19, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Should we be listing by authors or performers?
I'd think the most important thing in a list of songs about some specific topic is the lyrics, followed by the music. (If this were another Wikimedium that wasn't word-based but shared audio or video tracks, the situation might be different.)

But naturally, what most people are most familiar with is the performer(s), and they often have no idea without looking at a label or (virtual) liner notes, who the lyricist(s) or composer(s) might be.

Although there will be variations, the original song has a finite number of authors. The number of performers, however, can only grow (and keep growing) with time. See, for example, the songs beginning with "New York" — "New York, New York", "New York Minute", "New York State of Mind", etc. — many of which are listed many times with different performers. Very soon the "N" section will look (and probably be) unmanageable and impossible for a casual reader to navigate.

Some complications: (1) the same title (e.g. "New York, New York") may apply to two or more quite different songs, (2) variants are often significant ("notable") variants, (3) different performances of an identical version may sometimes still be significant, (4) the performer is often also the composer or lyricist, (5) like the contributor, the reader may only recognize the song by its performer rather than one of its authors and (6) finding the authors of a song may sometimes be difficult, although copyright, ASCAP and BMI rules should ensure that the authors do get credit in an accessible source.

An iron rule would be undesirable as well as unworkable, but should we establish some general understanding that it's best to list a single version of a song only once, with its lyricist(s), composer(s) and perhaps date, followed by the notable artists who have performed it (in order of either performance or importance)? In the unlikely event that such a policy could be implemented (maybe by clear instructions at the top of the list), it would make it clear, for example, that there is more than one song entitled "New York, New York", who wrote each song, and who has performed each song.

Plus the insufficiently-known writers and composers might get the credit (or in some cases blame) that they deserve.

But what do you think? Shakescene (talk) 20:53, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

a good number of these songs have their own articles. Why not a category for them?
192.30.202.15 (talk) 20:05, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Shouldn’t "I Am, I Said" by Neil Diamond be under the List of songs about New York City and Los Angeles?
I’m sure such a list could be supported.

Here's a copy of this post here: Talk:List_of_songs_about_Los_Angeles192.30.202.15 (talk) 21:32, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

are these songs specifically about NYC?
Civic Cat (talk) 19:38, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
 * "America" by Paul Simon
 * "American Boy" by Estelle ft. Kanye West
 * "American Tune" by Paul Simon
 * "China" by Tori Amos
 * "Christmas in the City" by Mary J. Blige
 * "City Boy" by Fun Lovin' Criminals
 * "City Love" by John Mayer
 * "City Song" by David Ippolito
 * "City of Blinding Lights" by U2
 * "City of Dreams" by The Loft
 * "I'm Waiting For The Man" by The Velvet Underground

I second the challenge to the legitimacy of American Boy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.193.179.122 (talk) 01:45, 7 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I removed some of those and a few others. I think maybe I should have allowed the prod to stay. Although "songs by city" seems acceptable NYC has such a huge presence on music this might border on being too broad and unspecific. I'm wondering if maybe sub-lists by borough would be better and then keep a broadened one for those about the city in general.--T. Anthony (talk) 10:48, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

ABDULLAH AL DOSSARY * New York ,New York
On YouTube I listened to Saudi Arabian artist named Abdullah Al-Dosary from the city of Dammam, on the coast of the Arabian Gulf winner of the reality program, and sang a song New York, New York, has led the song with all the success, I can assure you it's worth every estimate and watching. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Romancesoul (talk • contribs) 14:18, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

The letter 'A' seems to be missing?!
The letter 'A' seems to have disappeared! does anyone know how to recover it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.173.82.161 (talk) 22:28, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

How do you link song names that require "disambiguation" ?
I just entered the song Carnival by Natalie Merchant. Just typing 2x[ then Carnival then 2x] links it to the main article about Carnival, not the specific page for the song which is at Carnival_(Natalie_Merchant_song). Is there a simple way of linking the song title here to the song's wiki page? Finelinebob (talk) 02:34, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Songs by Joe Jackson
Hello, 'cause I don't know how to change, here are two remarks to the list: "New York mining disaster" 1941 by The Bee Gees refers to the State of New York, not the City. This song is about a miner trapped beneath the surface and hopes to be saved. There are no minings in New York City, I think. And second: There are at least seven songs by Joe Jackson missing: "Target" and "Chinatown" fom "Night and day" and also "Hell of a town", "Stranger than you", "Why" and "Happyland". 2A02:16F0:0:0:0:0:0:1A (talk) 08:38, 2 February 2016 (UTC)bjoern

Layout
Is it just me, or does it seem strange for the first six "letters" (numbers through E) to be arranged in bulleted columns (four on my monitor, which I acknowledge is wide), but F through Z as a single-column bulleted list? I don't see anything on the Talk page about this having been intentional, or about any plans to fix it... Beeeej (talk) 23:21, 16 November 2016 (UTC)