NYS Music 2024

Tag: New York Series

  • New York Series: “New York Is Not My Home” by Jim Croce

    New York City is famously known as the place where dreams are made. Countless musicians from Jay-Z to Billy Joel have risen from the concrete jungle and in turn paid homage to the city in their respective music. Their songs like “New York State of Mind” and “Empire State of Mind”  solidify the iconography, nostalgia and incomparable energy of NYC.

    But not all musicians have the same experience. Jim Croce and his song “New York’s Not My Home” is the antithesis of the other New York classics. A soft, folky, acoustic ballad, Croce expresses disillusionment with the famed city and the need to get out.

    “New York’s Not My Home” was released in 1972, the third track on Croce’s third studio album You Don’t Mess Around With Jim. This was his first album recorded with ABC Records and featured many of the tunes that skyrocketed him into the public eye, including “Time in a Bottle.”

    New York Series: "New York Is Not My Home" by Jim Croce
    “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim” album art

    Croce grew up in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He spent many of his formative years there, and went on to attend college at Villanova University in 1961. Croce would eventually travel far and wide but he continually was drawn back to the state of Pennsylvania his entire life. As such, he never had much attachment to New York City. In fact, he only lived there for a short period of time, in 1968. Croce moved there with his wife and fellow musician Ingrid Croce, when he was 30-years-old. With a record deal in hand, they hoped the city would lead to their big break. However, after becoming disenchanted with both the city and the music industry, the couple moved to the countryside back in Pennsylvania.

    According to Ingrid, the idea for this song came as they were leaving New York and driving to their new home. As the tale goes, the couple spent the night sleeping in their car in a parking lot in New Jersey. The sight of the New York City skyline from where they were parked gave Jim the idea for the song.

    In the first verse, Croce paints the scene and begins with the inkling that something here just isn’t working. 

    Things were spinnin’ ’round me

    And all my thoughts were cloudy

    And I had begun to doubt all the things that were me

    Been in so many places, you know I’ve run so many races

    I looked into the empty faces of the people of the night

    Somethin’ is just not right

    As the lyrics suggest Croce worked many jobs and traveled many places in his lifetime. Croce worked on construction crews and taught guitar at a summer camp. He joined the U.S. Army National Guard for a brief stint. He worked as a teacher at a junior high school and he also did a foreign exchange program in Africa and the Middle East. In most cases, Pennsylvania always pulled Croce back. In this respect, New York was never really his home and never a place he felt deeply connected with.

    The chorus repeats Croce’s need to leave New York City and find a new place.

    ‘Cause I know that I’ve gotta get outta here

    I’m so alone

    Don’t you know that I gotta get outta here

    ‘Cause New York’s not my home

    The second verse gets much more literal with Croce as he delves into his reasons for wanting to leave New York. While New York is a place where dreams are conventionally made, Croce never experienced commercial success there and instead became fed up with the rat race of the industry. Croce had secured a deal with Capitol Records but the contract heavily favored the record company and there were delays with the recording process. The couple could barely afford to live in NYC as a result, so they headed for the countryside in Pennsylvania, going as far as to sell their guitars before making the move.

    Though all the streets are crowded

    There’s somethin’ strange about it

    I lived there ’bout a year and I never once felt at home

    I thought I’d make the big time

    I learned a lot of lessons awfully quick

    And now I’m tellin’ you that they were not the nice kind

    It has been so long since I have felt fine

    But even in Pennsylvania, Croce continued to write and it was here that he penned perhaps his most famous tune “Time in a Bottle.” That song, as well as “New York’s Not My Home,” were both featured on You Don’t Mess Around With Jim. The album saw immediate success with a string of hit songs and throughout 1972-1973 Croce furiously toured the country.  While commercial success didn’t come in New York, Croce did things his way and it paid off.

    Towards the end of “New York’s Not My Home”, Croce fittingly ruminates on New York being someone else’s fantasy. New York may be where some dreams are made, but as Croce proves, it’s certainly not where all of them are.

     “The dream’s not mine anyway…So I’m going back to find…Some peace of mind in San Francisco.”

  • How New York City Shaped “Rhapsody in Blue,” 100 years later

    Even if they can’t name the tune, most people will recognize the iconic clarinet intro of the famed composition, “Rhapsody in Blue,” by George Gershwin. That song, now a timeless masterpiece, made its debut 100 years ago on February 14, 1924. The origins of the song are as wild a ride as the composition itself; and almost all of it traces back to the influence of New York City.

    Rhapsody in Blue George Gershwin 100
    Composer George Gershwin (1925) – Photo from Encyclopedia Britannica

    It was in Brooklyn, New York, that George Gershwin was born in the late 1800s, as Jacob Gershwin, a son of Russian Jewish Immigrants. From an early age he exhibited fantastic musical abilities on the piano and was tutored by the notable Charles Hambitzer, who saw greatness in Gershwin.

    At age 15, Gershwin dropped out of school and began playing piano in various nightclubs around New York City. It was in Tin Pan Alley that Gershwin worked as a song-plugger and honed his craft. And it was on Broadway that Gershwin worked as pianist for rehearsals and performances of theater productions. Both experiences stirred Gershwin’s penchant for jazz and popular music. In 1916, he released his first published song “When You Want ’Em You Can’t Get ’Em (When You’ve Got ’Em You Don’t Want ’Em)”

    In the following years, Gershwin’s work was commissioned by broadway composers and performed by popular singers and entertainers. His song “Swanee” (1919) was performed Al Jolson in the musical Sinbad and went on to sell more than two million recordings and a million copies of sheet music.

    The start of Rhapsody in Blue began in the years 1920-1924. Gershwin, composed for an annual production put on by musician Paul White. In 1922, Gershwin pushed to have a one-act opera titled “Blue Monday.” The reception was lackluster in a time period where Jazz was not accepted by the mainstream. Still, the bandleader Paul Whiteman, (who like Gershwin, wanted to see jazz gain respectability) later decided to commission Gershwin to write a jazz piece for a concert in 1923. 

    As the story goes, Gershwin completely forgot about the show until he read about it in the paper, only a few weeks before the concert date. It was in this mad scramble that he created the faed, “Rhapsody in Blue.” Once again, the soundscape of New York would have its hands in this composition.

    Gershwin later recalled that it was on a train from New York to Boston that he was hit with the inspiration for the song.

    “It was on a train…that I suddenly heard–and even saw on paper–the complete construction of the Rhapsody in Blue, from beginning to end. I heard it as a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America–of our vast melting pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our metropolitan madness. By the time I reached Boston, I had a definite plot of the piece, as distinguished from its actual substance.” 

    When the piece made its debut it was slightly different from what would appear in the published recording which came after the fact . While the band’s parts were ready in time for the show, Gershwin reportedly improvised much of the piano solo which existed only in his mind. The show was performed at the Aeolian Hall in New York City on February 14th, 1924. Composer Ferde Grofé completed a score for piano and full symphony orchestra in 1926.

    In later years, Gershwin would go on to compose hits such as “Embraceable You” and the Broadway adaptation of Porgy and Bess. Gershwin died in 1937 while undergoing surgery to remove a brain tumor. While he was only 38, Gershwin made an indelible impact on jazz compositions and music as a whole.

    In a final nod to the big apple, “Rhapsody in Blue” reached new heights when Woody Allen introduced the composition to a new generation in his 1979 film titled Manhattan – 42 years after Gershwin’s death.