Songs that give shout-outs to different regions across America

I've been thinking about what classic songs could be used as "Make America Great Again" anthems, and settled on "In America" by the Charlie Daniels Band (1980). The line about "just try and lay your hand on a Pittsburgh Steelers fan" will be especially relevant this election, with Trump's focus on the Rust Belt.



Back when we had a more cohesive nation, songs like this at least mentioned various places around the country, and often provided some local flavor from each one. As our country has become more fragmented, you don't hear that anymore, a topic I touched on in this old post:

There are plenty of newer songs on the "America" theme list, although I doubt they kick as much ass as "Living in America" by James Brown, from the Rocky IV soundtrack. What's really fallen off a cliff are songs that highlight several regions specifically, not just an overall American theme, nor boasting about why your state is better than everyone else's. That's a sign of regional fragmentation.

"California Girls" (the Beach Boys or the David Lee Roth version), "Dancing in the Street" (the original or the Jagger / Bowie cover), and "The Heart of Rock & Roll" are the only ones that run a tour across the whole country. One of the songs from Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet album has a fade-out that calls out a bunch of places -- Detroit, southern New Jersey -- but I can't remember which one, and lyrics websites don't say either.

There's also no more songs about red states, the last major one being "If You're Gonna Play in Texas" by Alabama, another triumph from that peak year in music, 1984.

If there's another song like "In America" during the Trump administration, it will probably have to refer to states or regions rather than cities, which have become so uniformly pro-Democrat since 1980.

A look around the county-level electoral map of Reagan vs. Carter reveals some notable exceptions from our point-of-view. Of course, most of the Northern industrial cities voted Democrat, but then so did a lot of the rural South -- that was the old New Deal coalition, no longer strong enough in numbers in 1980. And then there were quite a few big cities that voted for Reagan -- Indianapolis, Columbus, Cincinnati, Seattle, and Los Angeles. Also funny to see suburban DC voting Republican, on both the Maryland and Virginia sides.

The major change, though, is the surrounding metro area turning Democrat, where in 1980 it was usually only the city itself that was deep blue. Make the suburbs great again!