Baker's Dozen

If Houston were to come up with a pretentious slogan like Austin’s “Keep Austin Weird,” it would probably be “Keep Houston Humid” or “Keep Houston Sprawling.” Hated by people who visit, but adored by people who live here, Houston is a messy, ungraceful city. With no zoning, too much air pollution, a strip mall on every corner, and almost uninhabitable summers that last for 5 months, it’s a wonder that so many folks call it home. But I love it. It’s like the Wild West of large urban landscapes, a place where there are few barriers and fewer rules – anybody is welcome to stake his claim. Houston is also a cultural Mecca with a world-class art scene, thriving symphony, opera, ballet and theater and great restaurants. And, it’s the true birthplace of Zydeco. That’s right, suck it Louisiana! While Houston doesn’t enjoy a shiny national image, it does have a rich history. As evidence, take the following Baker’s Dozen, 13 songs about the Bayou City that just might change your perception about the country’s fourth largest metropolis…nah, probably not.

“If You Ever Go to Houston”

Bob Dylan

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Perhaps Bob Dylan shares my view of Houston as the Wild West. On this track he riffs on an old Leadbelly song, warning us to be careful when walking the streets of this fair city: “If you ever go to Houston, better walk right/Keep your hands in your pockets and your gun belt tight/You’ll be asking for trouble if you’re looking for a fight/If you ever go to Houston, boy you better walk right.”

“Home to Houston”

Steve Earle

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A great entry into the much loved genre of truck driving songs. Like “Six Days on the Road” and “White Freightliner Blues” before it, Earle’s ode to the big rig is a country shuffle that’s perfect for the road. It tells the tale of driver who’s been truckin’ his whole life and is finally ready to hang up his keys, if only he could get “home to Houston alive, then I won’t drive a truck anymore.”

“Fannin Street”

Tom Waits

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An homage of sorts to Leadbelly’s song of the same title and subject matter (although the late bluesman’s takes place in Shreveport, Louisiana), Waits sings about leaving home to seek “all the glitter and the roar” on Fannin Street in Houston town. Instead of fame and fortune, he ends up drunk and broke with a belly full of regret: “Give a man gin, give a man cards, give an inch he takes a yard, and I rue the day that I stepped off this train.”

“Houston”

Lee Hazlewood

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Dean Martin had a hit with this Hazlewood composition in 1965, but I prefer the version sung by its author, who incidentally, spent his formidable years in Port Neches, about 90 miles due east of Houston. The song is about a man who’s having a hard time adjusting to the harsh realities of the big city and who longs to return home to Houston: “Well it’s lonesome in this big town everybody puts me down/I’m a face without a name just a walkin’ in the rain/I’m going back to Houston…”

“Houston, TX”

Deer Tick

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This brand new addition to the growing canon of songs about Houston comes courtesy of Deer Tick, an up and coming alt-country, Brian Williams-admiring, outfit from Providence, Rhode Island. The connection to Houston stems from the fact that before forming Deer Tick, singer-songwriter John McCauley had a contract with a fledgling Houston-based record label to release his debut album, War Elephants. Not too much about Houston per se, except he comments on how there’s no good place in town, but he “feels alright.” Oh well, another typical reaction from a Yankee.

“Houston”

Rodney Crowell

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A Grammy Award-winning songwriter and collaborator with Emmylou Harris and Roseanne Cash, Crowell is somewhat of a legend in country music circles. Born and raised in Houston, Crowell wrote a whole album about his upbringing in the Bayou City. “Telephone Road” is a nostalgic trip down this once lively strip in the southeast part of town: “Barbecue and beer on ice/A salty watermelon slice/At the Little Taste of Paradise/On Telephone Road.”

“Houston is Hot Tonight”

Iggy Pop

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This odd little number off Iggy’s 1981 flop, Party, is a hoot, although there’s something bizarrely satisfying about the Detroit mad man working with former Monkees’ producer, Tommy Hart. But I digress. “Houston is Hot Tonight” is a surreal trip through the Houston of Iggy’s imagination, where spacemen and oil barrons trawl the streets: “Bright lights, Houston is hot tonight/Arabian sheiks and money, up in the sky/Now I don`t mind a bloodbath when I’ve got oil on my breath.”

“Houston Chicks”

Doug Sahm and the Tex Mex Trip

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One of the Lone Star State’s true musical heroes, Doug Sahm once proclaimed, “You just can’t live in Texas if you don’t have a lot of soul.” How right he was! A perfect ambassador for the state, his music represented all of the unique flavors and styles found in Texas – the blues, country, rock & roll, Western swing, Cajun and Tejano. The Alamo city has “(Is Anybody Going to) San Antone” and the Bayou City has “Houston Chicks,” a valentine to the lovely ladies that nurtured him in this great town.

“Houston”

R.E.M.

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One of the better songs from their 2008 release, Accelerate, “Houston” features some killer organ blasts and Michael Stipe’s usual cryptic lyrics. But it’s pretty obvious from the first line that he’s talking about Hurricane Katrina: “If the storm doesn’t kill me the government will.” He goes on to explain how “Houston is filled with promise/Laredo is a beautiful place/Galveston sings like that song that I loved/It’s meaning has not been erased.” He’s dead on about the promise in Houston and he’s on target about the bungling of the Katrina response. And as for that song about Galveston he likes, check out the next entry.

“Galveston”

Glen Campbell

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Written by Jimmy Webb, but immortalized by Glen Cambpell, this string-laden country classic is sung by a soldier in combat who is nostalgic for his home town of Galveston, Texas. While not technically about Houston, you have to realize how closely entwined these two cities are, namely because it’s where Houstonians go to frolic in the piss-warm oil slick that is the Gulf of Mexico. Most people who were raised in Houston have fond memories of childhood summers spent on the tar-filled beaches that line the island. The mere thought of hot coastal breezes, Strand-bought saltwater taffy, and meat tenderizer (to heal jellyfish stings) instantly opens the flood gates of nostalgia.

“Spin on a Red Brick Floor”

Nanci Griffith

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Austin might claim to be the “Live Music Capital of the World” (which, by the way, is total bullshit), but Houston has quite a rich musical history, an important part of which centered around the venerable club, Anderson Fair. This tiny red-bricked room nurtured some of country and folk music’s best songwriters, including Townes Van Zandt, Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, Lyle Lovett, Eric Taylor, Guy Clark, Robert Earl Keen Jr., and Nanci Griffith. “Spin on a Red Brick Floor” is a love letter to this old haunt, which is still kicking to this day. The recording featured here was made at Anderson Fair back in 1987.

“La Grange”

ZZ Top

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Basically a reworking of the John Lee Hooker track “Boogie Chillen,” “La Grange” is a simple blues number from ZZ Top’s 1973 record Tres Hombres. A small town about 100 miles west of Houston, it was the site of the original Chicken Ranch, the legendary brothel that served as the inspiration for The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Undoubtedly it enjoyed some clientele from the Houston area, but the real connection to the city is through the local reporter, Marvin Zindler, who busted the story open on the Houston ABC affiliate’s local newscast. You see, Zindler was a celebrity in Houston, famous for his investigative reportage on restaurants that had “slime in the ice machine” and other sanitary violations. The Ranch was shut down in August 1973, 68 years after first opening its doors. The song lives on.

“Tighten Up”

Archie Bell and the Drells

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“I’m Archie Bell and the Drells from Houston, Texas. We don’t only sing but we dance just as good as we walk. In Houston we just started a new dance called the Tighten Up. This is the music we tighten up with.” And so begins one of the grooviest hit singles from the 1960s and a Houston classic.

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