Seattle

"It's so relieving, to know that you're leaving, as soon as you get paid
It's so relaxing, to hear that you're asking, wherever you get your way
It's so soothing, to know that you'll sue me, this is starting to sound the same
I miss the comfort in being sad."

Nirvana, "Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle"

Planes, coffee, software, and rain--these are the things most people think of when they think of Seattle. Of course, as with most cities, there's more to it than that, and from Jelly Roll Morton and Woody Guthrie to Nirvana and Anti-Flag, musicians of every conceivable genre have had something to say about the Emerald City.

Even Perry Como got in on the act, with a song titled, simply, "Seattle," which was also performed by teen pop idol Bobby Sherman. The song extolled some of the city's beauties, some of which were entirely seasonal: "The bluest sky you ever seen in Seattle/And the hills the greenest green in Seattle...." However, it also recalled Seattle's earliest history, as a logging town; the original Skid Road was a street in the heart of downtown where logs would slide down to the shore: "If you ever fall in love with a logger/There is something you will have to understand/For as much as he may care you will always/Have to share his love with his green mountain land."

The Wailers are, of course, primarily known for "Louie, Louie," a playlist requirement for college parties ever since, for reasons destined to remain nebulous, certainly not because they were the first to record it. (That honor belongs to Richard Berry.) However, this band, which hailed from the Pacific Northwest, also penned a paean (if it can be called that) to Seattle. More than that, the band's mostly-instrumental, three-chord sound arguably made them the first Northwest grunge band ever.

Before grunge became a byword--and then a pejorative--there was Queensryche, which played a sort of melodic metal that brought them to prominence during the 1980s. The song "Jet City Woman" was more about the woman than the city, but did make use of one of Seattle's nicknames. "Jet City" referred, of course, to the fact that Boeing made its home in Seattle, and newly-manufactured planes making their first flights have been a common sight for decades. Boeing is so influential, in fact, that a massive layoff in the 1970s resulted in the following billboard being posted in the city: "Will the last person to leave Seattle please turn off the lights?"

Music-wise, Seattle had always thrived, with healthy jazz, blues, and rock scenes taking root shortly after those genres' inceptions. Of course, Seattle music didn't really attract attention outside the region until the 1990s. Whatever else, grunge spawned a number of songs that dealt, directly or tangentially, with the city where its principal bands originated. From Nirvana's "Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle" to Laura Love's "In Seattle," the city turned up everywhere, garnering the sort of musical attention that had previously been reserved for New York, Paris, and London.

Oddly enough, a common themes in songs about Seattle concerned getting away from the city as quickly as possible. Previously there had been Waylon Jennings' "Last One to Leave Seattle," of course, but indie artists reacted to Seattle's new prominence in sometimes surprising ways, from roots-pop duo the Basics' "Leaving Seattle" to Boston singer-songwriter Stacy Glen's paean to avoiding burnout of the same title. And local singer-songwriting Billy North sang, in "Long Way from Seattle," "Heaven is a long way from Seattle/Sometimes it seems so far to go/You and me like a glove fit together/Hold on tight don't put faith in the weather," commenting, perhaps, on the region's propensity for rain. Likewise, in Shawn Mullins' "September in Seattle," rain is a necessary component of the setting: "September In Seattle/Waiting on a train/I smoked my last cigarette standing in out of the rain."

Following on the heels of grunge, though, was a new kind of pop: similarly stripped-down in approach, it was far more upbeat, even when the lyrics weren't especially cheerful. Modern-rock group Fastball were a perfect example, and they had a "Seattle" song too: "The credit card is maxed out/So let's get high/'Cause it's raining all the time/And the rain's been seeping through my mind/But I get by."

Of course, in recent years, Seattle has chiefly become known as the site for the abortive World Trade Organization conference, and the protests and rioting it incited. The political punk group Anti-Flag wrote a song about the event, appropriately titled "Seattle Was a Riot": "Seattle was a riot, they tried to pin it on us/But we didn't show up, with gas and billy clubs/An un-armed mass of thousands, just trying to be heard/But there are no world leaders, that want to hear our words." Even Jello Biafra got in on the act, putting together the No WTO Combo, which issued a CD, Live from the Battle in Seattle.

Seattle's music history isn't as respectable as that of some other cities; then again, Seattle is comparatively young, and only recently got anything like large-scale attention. The city's uneasy relationship with the spotlight means that it remains to be seen whether it will continue to inspire songs, whether they are about Seattle itself, or merely about its weather.

Genevieve Williams is a freelance writer specializing in music, book reviews, and film. She is a former music editor for Amazon.com and a regular contributor to Blues Revue.