Far Out 40: The best songs about New York
A great French existentialist once said, “There is something in the New York air that makes sleep useless”, and despite its contrasts and controversies, this city has inspired many before and many after Simone de Beauvoir, birthing entire genres and musical movements by rage, rebellion, or remarkable ambition.
The most populated city in the US is rich in history as much as it is in squalor, “Something like a circus or a sewer,” as Lou Reed put it, with eight and a half million hopes and dreams facing a stark reality as they are confronted with the obscene cost of living crisis, queues of tourists and rats, which naturally offers a perfect breeding ground for music revolution.
Besides being the birthplace of Sonic Youth and Jay-Z, the five boroughs were the first home of disco, punk-rock, and of course, the Bronx’s own hip-hop, its immigrant melting pot hosting significant developments for bebop jazz, salsa, and the onstage musical.
Between its dramatic changes of season to its enigmatic reputation as a stardom factory, artists of all kinds have flocked to its Chelsea Hotel and its Rockaway Beach to pledge homage to the city they venerate or to twist the narrative to raise awareness that it’s all a scam.
We’ve all grown up with Hollywoodifications of somewhere we might some day or another end up visiting, and then realising that the place isn’t all that, but the soundtracks to those movies, to the musicals, to the Gossip Girls are what keep us dreaming.
No one romanticises New York better than Frank Sinatra or Madonna, and their lyrics of devotion made us all want to go and see it for ourselves, but a lot of the best music coming out of New York depicts its very real struggles of police brutality, racial inequality, crime, illegal work and unemployment. In a place where everyone wants to be somebody, there are nobodies piling up in the shadows, living in overpopulated buildings with other outcasts, as was the true living of many pop music icons to be.
Hopes are high with a new mayor in town, but high rents have forced iconic music venues like the punk scene’s own CBGB’s to shut down, and gentrification has shoed away those that made Bronx rap authentic.
Independent artists struggle in the increasingly corporate music climate, and with financial constraints, are effectively unable to continue ‘New York sound’, the city’s most timeless tradition. But here we attempt to capture the ones that did a great job of holding on to time’s test, and celebrate the good and the bad so that future listeners won’t miss out.
From Christmas songs to Broadway, here’s an ageless Far Out 40 rundown of those that best captured the city.
The 40 best songs capturing New York:
- Sting – ‘Englishman in New York’
- LCD Soundsystem – ‘New York, I Love You, but You’re Bringing Me Down’
- Lou Reed – ‘Walk on the Wild Side’
- U2 – ‘Angel of Harlem’
- Lord Tariq and Peter Gunz – ‘Deja Vu (Uptown Baby)’
- Louis Prima – ‘Brooklyn Boogie’
- The 1975 – The City
- Tom Waits – ‘Downtown Train’
- Wu-Tang Clan – CREAM
- Stevie Wonder – ‘Living for the City’
- Bad Bunny – ‘Nuevayol’
- Frank Sinatra – ‘New York, New York’
- Nas – ‘NY State of Mind’
- Leonard Cohen – ‘First We Take Manhattan’
- Billy Joel – ‘New York State of Mind’
- The Strokes – ‘New York City Cops’
- El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico – ‘Un Verano en Nueva York’
- Genesis – ‘The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway’
- Simon & Garfunkel – ‘The Only Living Boy in New York’
- Jay-Z with the Notorious BIG – ‘Brooklyn’s Finest’
- The Velvet Underground – ‘I’m Waiting For The Man’
- The Strokes – ‘New York City Cops’
- Bob Dylan – ‘Talkin’ New York’
- Madonna – ‘I Love New York’
- The Ramones – ‘Rockaway Beach’
- Lenny Kravitz – ‘New York City’
- Jim Croce – ‘New York’s Not My Home’
- Beastie Boys – ‘No Sleep Till Brooklyn’
- The Insect Trust – ‘The Eyes of a New York Woman’
- Ella Fitzgerald – ‘Manhattan’
- Steely Dan – ‘Daddy Don’t Live in That New York City No More’
- Joni Mitchell – ‘Chelsea Morning’
- Goo Goo Dolls – ‘Broadway’
- Le Tigre – ‘My My Metrocard’
- Purple Mountains – ‘Snow Is Falling In Manhattan’
- Leonard Bernstein – ‘West Side Story’
- Gil Scott-Heron – ‘New York Is Killing Me’
- Billie Holiday – ‘Autumn in New York’
- Alicia Keys – ‘Empire State of Mind Part II (Broken Down)’
- The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl – ‘Fairytale of New York’
