Songs (And Bands) With States In The Titles: Part 1 Of 5

I thought it would be fun to find a song and/or band named after each state in the Union. Since there are 50 of them, and that takes more time than I have in one day, I'm going to do 10 at a time. Going in alphabetical order, today I will cover Alabama through Georgia. Next time, Hawaii through Maryland. The third installment will include Massachusetts through New Jersey. The fourth will cover New Mexico through South Carolina. And the fifth and final installment will go from South Dakota through Wyoming. I've included a video link for each song and/or band whenever possible. Some states have multiple songs to choose from, and I couldn't decide on one, so I picked two of them. Enjoy!


1)  ALABAMA:  There's a highly successful country band that goes by the name Alabama. You might've heard of them? They've had a lot of hit songs throughout their career, especially in the 1980s. This was one of those hits...

Then, of course, there's the classic song by the Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd that you may have heard a time or two...

2)  ALASKA:  Songs about Alaska are a little harder to find, but they do exist. Here's one by John Denver...

Here's another Alaska song, this one by Johnny Horton...

3)  ARIZONA:  This one's pretty straightforward. This Kings Of Leon song is simply called "Arizona"...

4)  ARKANSAS:  I'm not exactly sure what this song has to do with the state of Arkansas, as there aren't any actual lyrics sung, but both the song ("When Electricity Came To Arkansas") and the name of the band (Black Oak Arkansas) contain the state's name, so there you go.

5)  CALIFORNIA:  There are dozens of songs I could've picked for this massive state, but I narrowed it down to just two. Forgive me if I omitted your favorite California song. First up, The Eagles' "Hotel California"...

Next up, The Mamas & The Papas' classic song, "California Dreamin'"...

6)  COLORADO:  Another straightforward song here. "Colorado" by The Flying Burrito Brothers (which, incidentally, is an awesome name for a band!)...

7)  CONNECTICUT:  Songs about Connecticut are apparently few and far between. This one, called "I Live In Connecticut," by the rock band Aerosmith, is a one-minute-long instrumental. Even Aerosmith couldn't find anything good – or bad – to say about Connecticut, I suppose...

8)  DELAWARE:  Even more obscure, apparently, are songs about Delaware. The only one I could find was a nonsense song by Perry Como which made very bad puns about the names of all the states, and I couldn't bear to post that here. Instead, here's a Norwegian alternative rock band called Delaware singing a song called "Wish For." Quite a good song, actually....

9)  FLORIDA:  Okay, so this is the most desperate I've been so far to find a song. There just aren't that many songs written about Florida, and many of the ones I did find were either directed politically (and negatively) toward the state and/or contained explicit lyrics, and I didn't particularly want to post those here. Then I remembered that there's a secular rapper who goes by the name "Flo Rida", and that's pretty close to "Florida", right? Well, most of his songs were also explicit. In searching some more, I saw that Flo Rida had rapped on a song by Lady Gaga called "Starstruck" which (surprisingly) didn't contain any explicit lyrics (unless she's using double entendres that I don't understand), and so that's my "Florida song" here. I know it's reaching, but I was in a pinch. Don't listen to it if you don't want to...

10)  GEORGIA:  Finally, a state with lots of good songs about it! But, like California, I'll limit it to just two here. And they're both classic soul songs! First up, Gladys Knight & The Pips' "Midnight Train To Georgia"...

And last but not least, Ray Charles singing "Georgia On My Mind"...