CINCINNATI -- If you’ve stayed at a Reds home game through the seventh inning stretch, you know the song “Cincinnati, Ohio.” It comes on the loudspeakers after everyone stands and sings “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”
Country star Connie’s Smith’s 1967 version of the Bill Anderson song goes like this:
“One more hour and I’ll be home.
Close my eyes and rest my bones.
Can’t be more than a mile or so
To Cincinnati, Ohio, Cincinnati Ohio.”
The lyrics might not be as familiar as “peanuts and Cracker Jack,” but if you’re from here, it’s kind of nice to know “we” made it into a No. 4 song on Billboard’s country chart.
And the word “Cincinnati” is way more popular among American musicians than “Cracker Jack.” That’s possible because our city has been called Cincinnati since Gen. Arthur St. Clair named it more than 225 years ago, and “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” is only 107 years old.
Plug our city’s name into the search engine at www.lyrics.net and it hits on 182 examples of recorded music lyrics that contain “Cincinnati.”
Do the same for “Cracker Jack” and you get a prompt that says “We’re sorry. These lyrics are currently not available for display.”
Poor “Cracker Jack.” You just don’t rate with the Queen City.
Loved In Country Lyrics
Using techniques I learned in American Studies classes at the University of California-Davis – yes, I’m a non-native but am creeping up on having lived half my life here – I scrolled through those 182 “Cincinnati” examples and pulled out some interesting patterns, song titles and lyrics.
First of all, country singers love, love, love songs that mention Cincinnati. Among the stars to sing our city’s name are Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Carrie Underwood, Blake Shelton, Glen Campbell, Jimmy Buffett, Bobby Bare, Tom T. Hall, the Statler Brothers, Big & Rich, Charlie Rich, Montgomery Gentry and Dwight Yoakam.
The No. 4 track on Yoakam’s 1986 debut album “Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc.” – made it to No. 3 on the country charts – was the Pikeville, Ky., native’s own “South of Cincinnati.”
Wrote Yoakam:
“If you ever get south of Cincinnati down where the dogwood trees grow.
If you ever get south of the Mason Dixon to the home you left so long ago.
If you ever get south of the Ohio River down where Dixieland begins.
If you ever get south of Cincinnati I’ll be yours again.”
Jimmy Buffett,regarded by some to be a pop star, others to be a country star, penned the 1982 song “Fins,” that has become a favorite of his beloved followers, the Parrotheads, who started the whole craze here at Riverbend Music Center.
Wrote Buffett:
“She came down from Cincinnati.
It took her three days on the train.
Lookin’ for some peace and quiet.
Hoped to see the sun again.”
Sinatra, Day And Clooney
There were only a few “Cincinnati” songs on the list that were sung by the so-called crooners and girl singers of the mid-20th century. In addition to Frank Sinatraand Cincinnati native Doris Day, Rosemary Clooney, the darling of Maysville, Ky., and aunt of actor George Clooney sang these words in her 1992 song “Sweet Kentucky Ham.”
“Servin up last call in Cincinnati.
But it’s still a night time town.
If you know your way around.
And despite yourself you find you’re wide awake.”
That same year, a much younger pop singer, Tori Amos, mentioned our city in “Upside Down.”
“Cincinnati – I like the word.
It’s the only thing we can’t seem
To turn upside down.”
Rock And Roll Influence
Fifteen years later, Cincinnatians’ hometown favorite band Over the Rhine recorded “I’m on a Roll,” which was written by its leaders, Linford Detweiller and Karin Bergquist, for their album “The Trumpet Child.”
“On a roll, I can’t be bothered.
I’m on a roll, I want the whole enchilada.
I’m on a role, Cincinnati to Ensenada.”
The classic rock band Kiss sang of our city once, on the 1974 song “Kissin’ Time.” The lyric is not a memorable one – “We’re kissin’ in Cleveland, Cincinnati, too" – and potentially offensive to Cincinnatians. Why mention Cleveland before Cincinnati? Really!
“Cincinnati” appeared in the forgettable 1983 lyrics of Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry’s “4 Guns West,” which is on the Joe Perry Project’s album “Once a Rocker, Always a Rocker.” It sold just 40,000 copies.
Rap and hip-hop artists, including Kalib Kweli, who started his career as an underground artist in Cincinnati 20 years ago, like the sound of “Cincinnati,” too. Among the artists to use it in lyrics of songs they recorded are Kanye West, Public Enemy, Snoop Dogg, Mos Def, Lil Wayne, T.I., Busta Rhymes, Sir Mix-A-Lot and Ice Cube.
And bands with, shall we say, unconventional names dropped our city’s name. Among them: Kidz Bop Kids, Why?, Oingo Boingo, Halo Friendlies, Scissor Sisters, Crime in Stereo, Five Deez and Devin the Dude.
Some might think these kind of names make Chubby Checker look like a winner. And, oh yeah, the man who recorded no less than eight songs with “Twist” in their titles during the early 1960s is on the “Cincinnati” list, too. It’s in the 1961 song “Twistin’ USA.”
If you don’t relate to Chubby’s ’60s dance grooves, you still have seven Reds game to catch an ear of Connie Smith’s “Cincinnati, Ohio” at Great American Ball Park before the season ends.
One The List Missed
Missing from the lyrics.net list of Cincinnati songs is by Indiana native Lonnie Mack called ”Cincinnati Blues." Mack is, is known for his Gibson Flying V guitar and the hot blues-rock licks he laid down before the emergence of guitar stars such as Stevie Ray Vaughn. It’s an autobiographical piece Mack wrote in the 1970s about getting arrested in Cincinnati.
Wrote Mack:“I left the country a warm summer day.
While walking ’cross the street a car almost run me down.
I hit it on the fender, I said ‘You better slow it down.’
They jumped from the car and they shot me in the leg.
And they put me in the Cincinnati jail.”You can listen to the song set to images of Cincinnati – including the long-gone Workhouse jail in Camp Washington – at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZg3dSsQy4k.
