List #4: Hometown Edition

Top 5 Songs Musical Works with References to Massachusetts Geography:

1. Ra Ra Riot - St. Peter's Day Festival

If I go to Gloucester you know I will
Wait there for you
The Rhumb Line is waiting there too
You know it's worth the nights we wait there
It all falls apart, apart

It should be noted that The Rhumb Line is a bar in Gloucester.

2. Vampire Weekend - Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa

Only in the title, but another song on the album, "Walcott," is far more explicit:

Walcott
The Bottleneck
Is a shit-show
Hyannisport
Is a ghetto
Out of Cape Cod tonight

3. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest

Grizzly Bear's newest album. Veckatimest is a tiny island in Gosnold, part of the Elizabeth Islands.

4. Ted Leo & the Pharmacists - Bridges, Squares

As I walked to Kendall Square
And crossed the river basin there
The Charles was black, the sky was blue
The view was old, the bridge was new

The Charles River separates Boston and Cambridge. Kendall Square is in Cambridge, and he's probably going over the Longfellow Bridge.

5. The Modern Lovers - Roadrunner

I'm in love with modern moonlight

128 when it's dark outside

I'm in love with Massachusetts

I'm in love with the radio on

Route 128 is what the locals call I-95. I-95 is something that comes up from Noo Yawk. This song also references Stop&Shop, which was pretty much the only supermarket in Massachusetts in 1976.