[On June 20th, 1947, mobster Bugsy Siegel was killed in Beverly Hills. So for the 75th anniversary of that murder, I’ve AmericanStudied Siegel’s role in the development of Las Vegas and a handful of other contexts for that tellingly American city. Leading up to this weekend post on Vegas in song!]
On five
great tunes to win (or, yeah, lose) it all to.
1)
Elvis Presley, “Viva Las Vegas” (1964):
I wrote about the illustrative film on Thursday, but the lyrics to Presley’s
song capture the city’s allure and realities alike quite vividly as well. Perhaps
never more so than in this couplet from the final verse: “If it costs me my
very last dime/If I wind up broke, oh well I’ll always remember that I had a
swingin’ time.”
2)
Gram Parsons, “Ooh Las Vegas” (1973): Released
posthumously after Parsons’ tragic death at the age of 26 from drug and alcohol
abuse at the age, “Ooh” would thus always have been tinged by the sadder side
of its titular city. But in case that weren’t enough, the first verse goes: “Ooh
Las Vegas, ain’t no place for a poor boy like me/ Ooh Las Vegas, ain’t no place
for a poor boy like me/Every time I hit your crystal city/You know you’re gonna
make a wreck out of me.”
3)
Sheryl Crow, “Leaving Las Vegas” (1993):
Both Presley and Parsons’ songs are from the perspective of a visitor to Vegas;
but as I wrote on Friday, the city is truly defined by those who work there
(both in and out of the tourist trade). Crow’s anthem, one of many stellar
tracks on her debut album, captures that working world perfectly in lines like “I
quit my job as a dancer at the Lido des Girls/Dealing blackjack until one or
two/Such a muddy line between the things you want/And the things you have to
do.”
4)
Sara Bareilles, “Vegas” (2007): A track
from her own, equally stellar debut album, Bareilles’ “Vegas” isn’t just a
return to the visitor pursuing dreams theme—it’s one where “Vegas” is used even
more overtly as a symbolic stand-in for anywhere “where dreams would be” (the song
also namechecks New York/Broadway, Mexico, and “sail[ing] the ocean” as other
such dream-destinations). But it’s even more interesting as a reflection that
nobody can get there alone, with the chorus’ oft-repeated question, “Can you
get me to Vegas?”
5)
Brandon Flowers, “Welcome to Fabulous Las
Vegas” (2010): The Killers’ lead singer is (like Friday’s subject Andre
Agassi) a famous native son of Vegas, and as a result a number of the band’s
songs have at least implicitly referenced the city. But it was with the opening
track of his solo debut record that Flowers really turned his attention fully
to his hometown (attention that most of the album would continue), quoting the famous
sign in the process. The song is an interesting mixture of the ideals and
the realities, the glitzy dreams and the painful truths, a defining duality
never more clearly captured than in Flowers’ chorus: “Las Vegas/Give us your
dreamers, your harlots, and your sins/Las Vegas/Didn’t nobody tell you the
house will always win?”
Next
series starts Monday,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Las Vegas songs, contexts, histories, or stories you’d highlight?
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