The Song Retains the Name (MP3s)

1. Portland My Home Town (1:31)
2. Portland My Home Town (Instrumental) (1:30)
3. Austin My Home Town (1:43)

A funny thing happened when iTunes was on shuffle the other day. I heard the familiar opening bars of a favorite song, then a familiar singing voice, then some very unexpected lyrics. Turns out that I've got three different versions of the same song, each of which offers a small clue to its origin.

These two versions, along with Duluth My Home Town, which was part of the original 365 Days Project, were part of a 1960s radio imaging package that landed in several markets across the country. "Portland" credits the song to "The Lobsters with Miss WLOB," "Austin" credits it to the PAMS Jingle Singers, and "Duluth" credits it to Claire Scott.

PAMS (Programming And Music Services) Jingles is a Dallas-based company that still creates radio packages today. The "My Home Town" campaign combined radio imaging with locally sold singles to inject a bit of civic pride and synergy into the listeners. Each market was able to customize the B side of the single, and in WLOB's case, they went with a swinging, big-band instrumental version.

I personally find that the Portland version fits the meter of the song the best. Additional versions are rumored or known to exist for Dallas, Houston, Detroit, Flint, and London. It's an upbeat, twangy little number with a healthy dose of banjo and slide guitar.

Comments

[Devlin Thompson]

I can account for Atlanta, Chattanooga, and Dayton. That last one comes courtesy of WONE, with the chorus rendered as "Dayton, Dayton...It's a WONE-derful town!"

[HP]

These remind me of a recording I heard on the radio, once, many years ago. It was Johnny Mercer singing a parody of this sort of thing, and the song was about Scottsdale, AZ (or possibly another undistinguished Southwestern US city).

The hilarious thing about it was that he'd taken the lyrics straight out of an encyclopedia or atlas. So it was a winsome, nostalgic song all about bauxite production, soil composition, a breakdown of gross domestic product, census statistics, etc.

Does this ring a bell for anyone? And if someone has it, would you be willing to share?

[Jeff]

I have a creaky tape somewhere of an old Dr. Demento show where he played a medley of these songs. Most were variants on this tune, though there was one for my home town of Oakland, CA that seemed more of a parody of this. As soon as I listened to "Portland" I knew that I had heard this before, but Portland replaced whatever city was mentioned in the version I heard.

[Dave the Spazz]

I have a 45 of the Memphis version. It's got a great line in there about "tremendous industrial growth." You can hear it over here: http://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/24097

[Martin Fenton]

The PAMS track "London My Home Town", sung in an obvious American accent, was used as a full-length ident tune on the pirate ship Radio London.

[darrin ego]

Hah. Funny post. I'm from Portland and I now live in Austin. Sometimes it seems like y'all post just for me . . .

[Lisa Wheeler]

I have several of these on my Web site: http://www.radiouseonly.com

If you have any that I don't have, I would love to get a scan of the label, and a snippet of audio to add.

Enjoy!!

Lisa

[Nelson]

I swear I once saw a Montreal version posted on somebody's blog once

[Hawkster]

Hiya,

About five yrs ago I came across a whole slew of these tunes somewhere on the net, including:

Alexandria VA
Birmingham AL
Brownwood TX
Charleston SC
Clovis NM
Crowley LA
Del Rio TX
Madison WI
Topeka KS
Greensboro NC

...and about 25-30 more including London UK, several Canadian spots, and the music bed for these masterpieces. What I found interesting was the need for ever-changing parameters for what was to be considered a "city highlight", depending upon the particular location.

-Hawkster

[Jill]

Hello,
I'm sooooo happy to have run across this site!!! I've been looking for the song about Topeka for a while and I was wondering if Hawkster could give me any links in order to find it? I would be extremely grateful.