Saturday, April 24, 2010

Songs about Buildings & Preservation

From various contributors to the National Trust for Historic Preservation professional list-serv, especially Roberta Lane and Pepper Watkins

Amusement Parks on Fire - "Back to Flash"
Arcade Fire - "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)"
Architecture In Helsinki - "The Cemetery"
Aretha Franklin - "Save Me"
B-52's - "Downtown"
Bauhaus - "Saved"
Bauhaus - "Watch That Grandad Go"
Beastie Boys - "Putting Shame In Your Game"
Beatles - "Fixing A Hole"
Beatles - "In My Life"
Ben Gibbard - "You Remind Me of Home"
Bill Monroe - "I'm Working on a Building"
Billy Bragg - "Back to the Old House" (Smiths cover)
Billy Childish & Holly Golightly - "Demolition Girl"
Billy Joel - "No Man's Land" (River of Dreams 1993)
Bo Diddley - "Don't Let Go (Hold On To What You Got)"
Bob Dylan - "Spanish Harlem Incident"
Bob Seger - "Main Street"
Brendan Benson - "House in Virginia"
Bright Eyes - "Big Old House""
Brightblack Morning Light - "Past A Weatherbeaten Fencepost"
Bruce Springsteen - "My City of Ruins"
Bruce Springsteen - "My Hometown" (Born in the USA)
Built to Spill - "The Plan"
Calexico - "Service and Repair"
Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band - "The Smithsonian Institute Blues (Or the Big Dig)"
Chin Up Chin Up - "The Architect Has a Gun"
Crooked Fingers - "Wrecking Ball"
David Bromberg - "Kaatskill Serenade"
Decemberists - "Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect"
Decemberists - "Los Angeles, I’m Yours"
Deerhunter - "Saved By Old Times"
Descendents - "Suburban Home"
Dinosaur Jr. - "Been There All The Time"
Don Caballero - "Repeat Defender"
Dr. Dog - "Uncovering the Old"
Drive Like Jehu - "Future Home of Stucco Monstrosity"
Elliott Smith - "Memory Lane"
Field Mice - "Landmark"
Fiery Furnaces - "Duplexes of the Dead"
Fugazi - "Fell, Destroyed"
Galaxie 500 - "Parking Lot"
George Harrison - "All Things Must Pass"
Gothic Archies - "Shipwrecked"
Gothic Archies "We Are The Gothic Archies"
Gram Parsons - "Streets of Baltimore"
Grandaddy - "Go Progress Chrome"
Guided By Voices - "Tour Guide at the Winston Churchill Memorial"
Hüsker Dü - "Dead Set On Destruction"
Iggy Pop - "Neighborhood Threat"
Interpol - "The Lighthouse"
Interpol - "Wrecking Ball"
Iris DeMent - "Our Town"
Jam - "Bricks & Mortar"
Jam -"The Planners Dream Goes Wrong"
Jimmy Buffet - "Ringling Ringling"
Joni Mitchell - "Big Yellow Taxi" ("They paved paradise...") (1970)
Kinks - "Come Dancing" (the day they tore down the Palais)
Kinks - “The Village Green Preservation Society”
Kinks - “Village Green”
Kirsty Maccoll - "London Bridge Is Falling Down"
LCD Soundsystem - "New York I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down"
Leonard Cohen - "Stories of the Street"
Les Savy Fav - "Raise Buildings"
Liars - "Protection"
Loretta Lynn - "This Old House"
Lyle Lovett - "This Old Porch"
Madness - "Our House"
Merle Haggard - "Okie From Muskogee"
Milemarker - "Ant Architect"
Mission Of Burma - "Progress"
Mississippi John Hurt - "Avalon, My Home Town"
Modern Lovers - "Dignified and Old"
Modern Lovers - "Rockin' Shopping Center"
Modest Mouse - "History Sticks To Your Feet"
Mull Historical Society - "Watching Xanadu"
My Morning Jacket - "Masterplan"
Nancy Griffith - "This Old Town"
Nas - "Can`t Forget About You"
New Order - "Ruined In A Day"
New South - "Old Home Place"
Nicole Atkins - "Carousel" and "Neptune City"
Norman Blake & Tony Rice - "Eight More Miles to Louisville"
O'death - "Busted Old Church"
Of Montreal - "The Past is a Grotesque Animal"
Old Crown Medicine Show - "James River Blues"
Orchid - "Death Of A Modernist"
Oxford Collapse - "Please Visit Your National Parks"
Pavement - "Grave Architecture"
Pet Shop Boys - "Suburbia"
Pixies - "Alec Eiffel"
Pop Will Eat Itself - "The Black Country Chainstore Massacreee"
Pretenders - "My City Was Gone"
Propellerheads - “History Repeating” (Shirley Bassey as vocalist.)
Radiohead - "Palo Alto"
Red Sparowes - "Alone and Unaware, The Landscape was Transformed in Front of Our Eyes" (2006)
Ricky Skaggs - "Little Cabin Home on the Hill"
Rilo Kiley - "Paint's Peeling"
Roger Miller - "Tomorrow Night in Baltimore"
Rorschach - "In Ruins"
Rosemary Clooney - "This Ol’ House"
Rufus Wainwright - "Barcelona"
Ryan Adams - "New York, New York"
Seldom Scene - "C&O Canal"
Shipping News - "The Architect in Hell"
Shotmaker - "Archaeologist"
Simon & Garfunkel - "Bleeker Street"
Simon & Garfunkel - "So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright"
Siouxsie and The Banshees - "Cities In Dust"
Six Parts Seven - "Seems like Most Everything Used to be Something Else"
Sonic Youth - "The Destroyed Room"
Sonic Youth - "The Sprawl"
Sonic Youth - "What a Waste"
Sufjan Steven - "Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head! (Rebuild! Restore! Reconsider!)"
Sufjan Stevens - "Chicago"
Sun Kil Moon - "Convenient Parking" (Modest Mouse cover)
Talking Heads - "Burning Down The House"
Talking Heads - "Cities"
Talking Heads - "Don't Worry About The Government"
Talking Heads - "Nothing But Flowers" (for the open space & landscape preservationists)
Ted Leo & the Pharmacists - "Bridges, Squares"
Ted Leo & the Pharmacists - "The 11th"
Ted Leo & the Pharmacists - "Dirty Old Town" (Dubliners/Pogues cover)
Thermals - "Keep Time"
Tipping Canoe - "Order To Stop Construction"
Tom Waits - "Come on Up to the House"
Tom Waits - "Fannin Street"
Tom Waits - "House Where Nobody Lives"
Vampire Weekend - "Mansard Roof"
Van Morrison - "Cyprus Avenue"
Vehicle Flips - “Song For Pahaquarry, NJ (1824-1997)”
We Were Promised Jetpacks - "A Half Built House"
Woody Guthrie - "This Land is Your Land"
XTC - "Ball and Chain