Street Songs

My local radio station has a noon time show called Barrel of Monkeys.  Typically, the show picks the next song based upon the last letter of the previous one.  Or, some variety thereof.  Today's show had a "street" theme.  That is, the name of the song had to have the word street in it.  Tricky.  My SO and I really had to work hard to think what songs we knew that had that word in it.  I came up with a list and then I checked it on iTunes (which I admit isn't the definitive word on the subject).  I thought that I would list the ones that I remembered.



I think the first street song that I remembered was Street Fighting Man by the Rolling Stones.  I know that I first heard it on their Hot Rocks album (1972).  I remember that album got a huge amount of play, especially on our turntable.  I especially liked the song, The Midnight Rambler.  The next song that I recalled, probably from the radio was Baker Street by Gerry Rafferty.  iTunes says it's from the City to City album released in 1978.  Yikes.  That means I probably first heard it on an AM station, probably WABC in NY.  Chronologically speaking, I think the next song I heard was probably Martha & the Vandellas' song Dancing In The Streets.  According to my research, they released it in 1964.  I may have heard it then, but more likely it was from a later cover.  There have been some amazing covers of that song since then by The Mama's & the Papas and David Bowie & Mick Jagger.

I next remembered The Doors Love Street which was released in 1968 on the Waiting For The Sun album.  My middle brother was a big fan of the Grateful Dead.  I remember that he collected cassette concert tapes.  The song was Shakedown Street and was first performed at the Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, Colorado in 1978.   Bruce Springsteen was my youngest brother's favorite artists.  I remember he owned a copy of the Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. album.  It seems like Bruce had the most songs with the word street in them.  Though, I only remembered two of them:  Out In The Street and The E Street Shuffle.  There are a few others that I found when I searched iTunes, like Incident on 57th Street, One Way Street, and Wrong Side of the Street and so on.

Finally, since my SO really likes Billy Joel, he had the song 52nd Street contained in the album of the same name and Big Man On Mulberry Street from The Bridge.  Sting had the song Moon Over Bourbon Street from the The Dream Of The Blue Turtles album (1985).  Finally, in my search I came across The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy) by Simon & Garfunkel from way back when.

So after checking out the iTunes store, I wanted to see what I actually had in my iTunes library.  Wow, I completely spaced on some important songs:  Like U2 on The Joshua Tree album Where The Streets Have No Name.  How could I possibly forget Takin' It To The Streets by The Doobie Brothers?  Green Flower Street by Donald Fagen.  Oh, and the amazing song by Bruce, The Streets Of Philadelphia.

I guess this is an opportunity to create a street playlist.  Should I include the synonym road?