Songs Describing Places in Absurdly Idealized Terms

[San Bernardhinault]

In my mind, Echo Beach was probably the title of a JG Ballard short story. It was somewhere that the water crystallised into myriad colours, or where the tourists drowned themselves in the ocean driven by a primitive urge, or where the cruise ships dumped their B-Ark voyagers in order to relieve the rest of the world, or where a middle class professional man slowly finds himself cut off from society but becoming a sexual godhead among a clique of increasingly drug addled and cultish people who've themselves abandoned their respectable lives in order to live on this hard to access stretch of estuarine silt in southern Essex.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Sadly... nah.

[pebblethefish]

She's from Canada though, and her job is very boring (she's an office clerk). The bar for nostalgic memories is understandably low.

[Benjm]

In my mind, Echo Beach was probably the title of a JG Ballard short story. It was somewhere that the water crystallised into myriad colours, or where the tourists drowned themselves in the ocean driven by a primitive urge, or where the cruise ships dumped their B-Ark voyagers in order to relieve the rest of the world, or where a middle class professional man slowly finds himself cut off from society but becoming a sexual godhead among a clique of increasingly drug addled and cultish people who've themselves abandoned their respectable lives in order to live on this hard to access stretch of estuarine silt in southern Essex.

My wife and mother-in-law went to a funeral in Shepperton a couple of months ago. I asked whether they saw much in the way of luxuriant vegetation, brilliantly plumed tropical birds and orgiastic rites in the aisles of the local white goods emporium but apparently not.

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

'Didn't we have a lovely time the day we went to Bangor'.

Nope. 79 all out, they got them for 7 on a wet miserable Sunday. And we had to drive back through the centre of Conwy.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

'Didn't we have a lovely time the day we went to Bangor'.

Nope. 79 all out, they got them for 7 on a wet miserable Sunday. And we had to drive back through the centre of Conwy.

Even the song didn't paint things in universally idealized terms - after they had lunch, tea and eels on the ferris wheel her mate Elsie was understandably worse for wear and was sick. It was all shiny for the narrator - her and Jack had a cuddle on the way back and got on the hoy with a bottle of cider while poor Elsie was probably sat throwing up into a carrier bag. I suspect for the rest of their lives whenever the narrator said "didn't we have a lovely time the day we went to Bangor" Elsie tutted and muttered "not all of us".

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

The back story makes the song, frankly.

[Jah Womble]

Even the song didn't paint things in universally idealized terms - after they had lunch, tea and eels on the ferris wheel her mate Elsie was understandably worse for wear and was sick. It was all shiny for the narrator - her and Jack had a cuddle on the way back and got on the hoy with a bottle of cider while poor Elsie was probably sat throwing up into a carrier bag. I suspect for the rest of their lives whenever the narrator said "didn't we have a lovely time the day we went to Bangor" Elsie tutted and muttered "not all of us".

Ah, so you reckon that she (the narrator) and Jack were the only ones of the entourage to indulge in the scrumpy?

That might explain matters. I'd never previously understood why it wasn't 'some bottles of cider', which would still scan: I mean, there were clearly a good few of them on this beano - how far is one bottle of cider likely to go?

[3 Colours Red]

Depends if it's one of them 3-litre ones you can buy dirt cheap. Get rat-arsed for ?2.49.

[Greenlander]

I expect scrumpy to come in this type of container, the sort that might be used for petrol or floor cleaner.

[Jah Womble]

Depends if it's one of them 3-litre ones you can buy dirt cheap. Get rat-arsed for ?2.49.

...or around 75p as it would've been in 1979.

[Satchmo Distel]

Some of these songs are not describing the places at all (e.g. Bangor) so are not really eligible. Bangor could just as easily be Rhyl or any other seaside town.

[Jah Womble]

If it weren't a positive experience, would they not then be singing 'didn't we have a sh*t old time the day we went to Bangor'? (I mean, I get what you're saying, but I think that the remit has expanded somewhat from the OP - after all, we've also covered places that get a slagging in songs on the way.)

Anyways, I don't know much about San Bernardino but I think that the fifty-year-old hit by Christie - ie, the follow-up to Yellow River (which was clearly about a soldier's return from Vietnam) - rather overstates what a utopia they reckon it to be. I say this with some confidence, since the band members later admitted that they'd never actually been there. (Not only that, but writer Jeff Christie didn't even bother to check the spelling of it for the title.)

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Some of these songs are not describing the places at all (e.g. Bangor) so are not really eligible. Bangor could just as easily be Rhyl or any other seaside town.

It maybe was Rhyl, according to this slightly confusing Wiki paragraph (in which it switches between Bangor/Rhyl and Bangor in Wales / another Bangor):

It has been claimed that "Day Trip To Bangor" was actually inspired by a day trip to Rhyl (a seaside resort 35 miles east of Bangor, North Wales), but because Bangor had an extra syllable and slipped off the tongue more easily, it was used instead of Rhyl. This caused an outcry from councillors and businesses in Rhyl who complained that the publicity would have boosted the resort's tourist economy.^{[citation needed]} Songwriter Cook has unconditionally denied this, however.^[5] Cook, when interviewed for the BBC Radio 4 documentary, broadcast on 29 September 2011, said the song was "absolutely yes" about the Bangor in Wales. She said "I was so ignorant at the time that I didn't know that any other Bangor existed, so it was categorically this Bangor, and it was Bangor because it scanned and for no other reason than that. And it was the only place I knew along the north Wales coast." In the documentary, when interviewer Jonathan Maitland reminded Cook that there was a furore about the song really being about Rhyl, Cook laughed and called it "a great piece of nonsense".

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Anyways, I don't know much about San Bernardino but I think that the fifty-year-old hit by Christie - ie, the follow-up to Yellow River (which was clearly about a soldier's return from Vietnam) - rather overstates what a utopia they reckon it to be.

San/Santa place names seem to sound exotic for Brits, and there is added factor of the closing "o" which always goes well in a song (the aforementioned Amarillo) being a good example.

San Bernardino also gets a nod in Route 66 of course, and is probably in better shape (and is more scenic) than many of the other places named - Barstow for example.

[Jah Womble]

I’ve spent a night in Barstow - tremendous fun. You’ll be unsurprised to learn that we wound up at a bar that served its draught beer in jam jars.

[Amor de Cosmos]

She's from Canada though, and her job is very boring (she's an office clerk). The bar for nostalgic memories is understandably low.

This is true. Limbo level at best.

[Various Artist]

It took me a good few years after first hearing that song to twig that "clerk" rhyming with "work" wasn't just a comical forcing of a rhyme for the sake of the (fairly bouncy, lighthearted-sounding) song, but in fact purely how Martha would, as a North American, pronounce the word naturally.

It's never been quite so enjoyable since, somehow.


On a parallel note, did anyone else here ever see the terrible yet strangely watchable short-lived Cornwall-set soap Echo Beach back in around 2008? It starred Jason Donovan and Martine McCutcheon, so some fine soap pedigree there, and a supporting cast featuring the likes of Hugo Speer, Gwyneth "Mrs McCluskey" Powell and Susie "Chardonnay" Amy – but the USP of the whole thing was that it was attached to a parallel comedy-drama series called Moving Wallpaper set in the soap's (fictional) production office. So you'd watch an episode of the latter, starring Ben Miller as a superbly unbearable executive-producer type attempting to sex-up the 'proper' show and generally buggering around with the plots, narrative consistency etc. etc. ... then half an hour later would come the episode of the soap that you'd supposedly just seen the tortuous making of.

The gimmick was, to be honest, the only reason I went within a country mile of Echo Beach, and the problem (if such it was) was of course that Moving Wallpaper was far and away the more interesting show. The actors certainly looked like they were having a ton more fun – e.g. I recall Jason Donovan popping up in a hilarious cameo as a magnificently distorted, scenery-chewing version of 'himself' (i.e. playing the actor playing the character in the other show) that showed miles more personality than the bland soap itself allowed.
Almost inevitably, Echo Beach was canned after one series, whereas Moving Wallpaper got picked up for a standalone second series with Miller's character attempting to produce some kind of online zombie drama series – one that, I think, was purely imaginary in this instance.

[Jah Womble]

I knew Ben years ago so I do recall watching that show - was it really that long ago? Perhaps not.

Whatever, I thought it an interesting premise and he was very good in it.

[Sits]

I expect scrumpy to come in this type of container, the sort that might be used for petrol or floor cleaner.

24 hour urine sample.

[Jah Womble]

24 hour urine sample.

Definitely one of the Mondays' best moments.

[G-Man]

I once had a conversation with a woman from Texas:

"Have you ever been to Amarillo?"
"Yeah.
"What's it like?
"It's a shithole."

Neither of the two songs I know about it claims otherwise. For Lou Christie the attraction is Marie, and for George Strait it's just a place he's driving his truck to.

[G-Man]

One guy I wouldn't approach for travel advice is Frank Sinatra. One minute Chicago is his kind of town, then New York is a swell kind of town, then L.A. is his lady whom he won't say goodbye to... Untrustworthy.

[Satchmo Distel]

Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday - "Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans?"

Not enough for Louis to go back and live there (and why would he? He was raised in desperate poverty in a Jim Crow state).

The film for which this song was recorded was also deeply racist (Billie played a maid).

[Tony C]

Went to Mull of Kintyre once and whilst it wasn't terrible my desire wasn't always to be there. Macca never mentioned the mosquitos.