Songs in Celebration of The Armpit of the Nation (MP3s)

And when I say armpit, I mean it in the best possible sense. New Jersey's other nickname, "The Garden State" is apparently derived from an 1876 quote in which Abraham Browning attempted to stir the pride of his fellow Jersey-ites by comparing the state to a giant barrel open at both ends, with Philadelphia picking at one end, and New York rifling through the other.

Great. A giant barrel. For most of this and the previous century, the word "barrel" has more of a connotation of toxic waste than of fresh produce. So maybe being an armpit isn't so bad after all.

With this in mind, here are 22 songs celebrating the great state that I never in a million years would've believed I'd be spending my whole life in. Many (but not all) are musically misguided as befits a state that is alternately compared to an armpit or a barrel with the bottom removed. These come from former WFMU DJ KBC's compilation A Garden State of Mind.

Photo by Bob Jagendorf.

(All links are MP3s - right-click to download)

The Chordblenders - I'm From New Jersey   |   Billy Murray - My Old New Jersey Home

Gabrielle - New Jersey   |   Stan Gilmer - Atlantic City (That Big Time Town)

The Treniers - Everything's Wild in Wildwood   |   Al Alberts - On The Way To Cape May

Billy Murray - Over On The Jersey Side   |   NJ X-Cops - Welcome To New Jersey

Junior Demus - New Jersey Drive   |   John Gorka - I'm From New Jersey

Edie From Ohio - No Left Turns In Jersey   |   JC O'Connor - Space Ace From Jersey City

Tiffany & Rocco - I'm A Jersey Girl   |   Johnny Marvin - Jersey Walk

Tommy Facenda - High School USA   |   Cliff Eberhardt - Summers In New Jersey

Bob D'Fano - New Jersey   |   "Robert" - New Jersey

John Pizzarelli, Jr. - I Like Jersey Best   |   Jim Albertson - Jersey Devil

John Linnell - New Jersey   |   Dave Van Ronk - Garden State Stomp

Comments

[Rick Macnamara]

No Palisades Park songs?

[Courtney]

"New Jersey's only good for two things, beer and bowling"- The Snow Fairies, "The Stone Pony" from Get Married CD...worth tracking down for indiepop NJ song collectors...

[tferraro]

Wow, thanks so much. My uncle is moving back to New Jersey after almost 40 years. He was in the Army for much of that time, so was in Vietnam, Virginia, California, Kansas, Minnesota, and for the past 20 years outside Cleveland. Now it's back to Jersey, baby, and I was putting together a CD for him with Jersey songs. This post has made that task a million times easier. Thanks, dear leader.

[Parq]

A truly indispensible playlist. Many thanks, too, for introducing me to the ravishing photography of Bob Jagendorf. I was kind of interested in what "HDR" might be, so I consulted Mr. Google. It turns out, "An HDR (High Dynamic Range) image stores pixel values that span the whole tonal range of real-world scenes. Therefore, an HDR image is encoded in a format that allows the largest range of values, e.g. floating-point values stored with 32 bits per color channel."

Well, you ask a silly question . . .

[Linus Mines]

23. Stanley Matis - New Jersey

[jeffro]

yeah! love the John Gorka song...

[Lipwak]

And don't forget...

What I Want To Know Is Where Mosquitos Go When Those Jersey Breezes Blow - Wingy Malone (~1930s, brought to light by the Old Codger)

Jersey Girl - Springsteen or Waits

? Jersey Bounce - Benny Goodman

Deep In The Heart of Jersey - Uncle Floyd

The Rolling Mills Of NJ - John Roberts and Tony Barrand (a parody of a more modern "traditional" song.)

Cheers,

Lipwak

[bartelby]

I'd like to point out that my town East Orange has only one superfund site, the Veterans Hospital. Not bad considering Champale alone is responsible for 2 superfund sites in Trenton.

[Antimax]

You left out "The ten best things about New Jersey" by the Bloodhound Gang.

It's pretty great... just 10 seconds of silence, ha...

[The Incredible Diving Horse]

"Atlantic City, My Old Friend", composed by Paul Anka & performed by Robert Goulet on the "Atlantic City" soundtrack album.

[Johnny]

Rick Macnamara--
The other Uncle Floyd "Joisey" song I recall is "Home, Home in Bayonne" with the lyric "where the Polish ladies talk on the phone...and seldom is heard an intelligent word..."

[Zap Rowsdower]

Anne McDonagle - Traveling Thru New Jersey

I only ever heard this song on WFMU, on the old Incorrect Music show.

[Cap'n Chris]

What about David Amram's " Is there a Long Branch branch of the Red Bank bank"?

[MetroBase]

Wow, you miss the mark, one previous commenter ask? "No Palisades Park songs?" and I say It's incomplete without Uncle Floyd Vivino's Wild West City Jingle for the theme park with the same name. It can be heard on their web site: www.wildwestcity.com as soon as you open the web page. Where an mp3 can be recorded of it. This theme is a reminder of Jersey in the late 70's and 80's, of NJ UHF channel 68, of all the local jersey bands and of course "The Uncle Floyd show" (www.unclefloyd.com). Pure Jersey!!!
MetroBase

[Jim Hanley]

I'd love to find an MP3 of the aforementioned Deep in the Heart of Jersey.

Freddy "Boom Boom "Cannon's Palisades Park also jumps to mind.

I wonder if there are any extant recordings of Raucous in Secaucus (from Ken Fairchild's old WMCA show of the early '70s.)

[rrhobbs]

Has any one see this at MetaFilter? New Jersey songs | http://ask.metafilter.com/50035/New-Jersey-songs

[Vim]

That's not John Linnell, you should fix that in this 4 year old blog post.