By Sam Sessa (Baltimore Sun, 3/4/2008)
Baltimore has been many a musician’s muse over the years.
Today, the indie rock group Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks release their latest album, Real Emotional Trash. Malkmus was the primary singer and songwriter for the indie rock band Pavement until they split in the late ’90s. Based in Portland, Ore., the band looked to the East Coast for the title to its new single, “Baltimore.”
The word “Baltimore” has popped up in plenty of songs. But unlike some other cities – New York with Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York,” San Francisco with Tony Bennett’s “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” – Baltimore doesn’t have an anthem, per se.
Culturally speaking, Baltimore is better known for the work of John Waters and for the TV show The Wire than one particular song. The Wire was the inspiration for the Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks’ single, drummer Janet Weiss told the Web site PaperThinWalls.com.
To mark the release of the newest song named “Baltimore,” we ranked 10 songs with the word “Baltimore” in their title.
Continue reading “Baltimore: A Muse for Many” at Sam Sessa’s Midnight Sun blog.
