Summer’s here. While fewer of us will be worrying about the logistics of passport renewal than usual due to the inclement fiscal forecast, we can at least evoke some of the spirit of exotic holidays past. Qualification: not travelling or holiday songs per se, but must include at least an allusion, or titular reference, to tourism.
1. The Damned – Lovely Money
Inspired by the nationalism of the Falklands War, this diatribe against nostalgia for Olde England, including Beefeaters and pick-pockets, featured a searingly funny voiceover from Viv Stanshall.
Lyric:
So off you go, away you fly / We’ve had your money, now goodbye
We fleeced you good, we bled you dry / Goodbye
2. Crosby, Stills Nash & Young – Marrakesh Express
Inspired by a train ride undertaken by Graham Nash, which the Hollies declined to record, in Morocco in ’66, in which the vibrancy of the landscape contrasted with the listlessness of his fellow travellers in first class.
Lyric:
Looking at the world through the sunset in your eyes,
Travelling the train through clear Moroccan skies
3. Deana Carter – We Danced Anyway
The thrill of frantic dancing to music you’ve never heard before in an exotic location you’ve just found, penned by Randy Scruggs and Matraca Berg and bolstered by an accompanying video shot in Puerto Rico.
Lyric:
There was music everywhere, I can see us there
In a happy little foreign town
4. Men At Work – Down Under
This is not only Australia’s unofficial national anthem but also a hymn to that nation’s indefatigable wanderlust. And whisper it, co-written by a Scot.
Lyric:
I said do you speak-a-my-language?
He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich
5. The Men They Couldn’t Hang – The Rabid Underdog
The ultimate pre-euro denomination budget travelogue. See also Chumbawamba’s ‘Home With Me’.
Lyric:
Squandered are my Gilders, in Deutschmarks I have none
In Zurich I was milked of all my Francs
6. Jimmy Buffett – Changes In Latitudes, Changes In Attitudes
A somewhat forced couplet, perhaps, but a nice corollary to the standard ‘travel broadens the mind’ homily.
Lyric:
Reading departure signs in some big airport
Reminds me of the places I’ve been
Visions of good times that brought so much pleasure
Makes me want to go back again
7. B-52s – Roam
Rapturous expression of aforementioned nomadic sentiments.
Lyric:
Fly the great big sky / See the great big sea
Kick through continents / Bustin’ boundaries
8. Johnny Cash – I’ve Been Everywhere
Amid the long list of Stateside destinations, Cash slips in a few from Canada as well as cities in Mexico and South America. And Bangor. Though likely he means Bangor, Saskatchewan rather than Bangor, South Wales.
Lyric:
I’ve been everywhere, man / Crossed the deserts bare, man
I’ve breathed the mountain air, man / Of travel I’ve had my share, man
9. Red Hot Chili Peppers – Around The World
The Peppers too start off parochial, listing romantic sojourns in Pennsylvania and California before making that rare American passport application and taking in Bombay, Switzerland and Russia. Alternatively there’s Daft Punk’s similarly titled anthem to global travel, though that’s a tad more minimalist.
Lyric:
I saw God / And I saw the fountains
You and me girl / Sittin’ in the Swiss mountains
10. Joe Jackson – Big World
A kind of culinary tourism, as Joe contemplates the delights of shrimps in Hong Kong, baklava in Istanbul and mushrooms in Bali.
Lyric:
Sitting on the floor in Kyoto / Marvel at the latest catch
Eat it as soon as you are able / Quick before they cook it
11. All Saints – Pure Shores
This Shaznay/William Orbit collaboration featured heavily in Thai tourist shakedown film The Beach, though more prosaically spawned a video filmed on the Norfolk coastline.
Lyric:
Take me somewhere I can breathe
I’ve got so much to see
This is where I wanna be
12. The Beach Boys – Kokomo
Late-period sans Brian Wilson Beach Boys effort written to accompany the Tom Cruise vehicle Cocktail -sees them extend their love of surf, sea and sand to destinations beyond California. Its title inspired the opening of a real-life holiday resort off the Florida Keys.
Lyric:
Aruba, Jamaica, Ooh, I wanna take you
Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama
Key Largo, Montego, Baby why don’t we go
13. The Clash – Safe European Home
Strummer and co, meanwhile, muse on the fact that if you venture away from the postcard beaches, Jamaica can be a trifle intimidating.
Lyric:
They got the sun and they got the palm tress
They got the weed, and they got the taxies
Whoa, the harder they come, n’ the home of ol’ Bluebeat
Yes I’d stay and be a tourist but can’t take the gun play
14. 10cc – Dreadlock Holiday
Messrs Gouldman and Stewart had similar reservations (actually, it’s said to be based on an incident witnessed by Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues). From the album Bloody Tourists….
Lyric:
Well he looked down at my silver chain
He said I’ll give you one dollar
I said, you’ve got to be joking, man
It was a present from me Mother
15. Wreckless Eric – Whole Wide World
A lovelorn wanderer’s endless quest for Mrs Right. With the caveat that, as mater rather damningly implies, with an approximate worldwide population of three and a half billion females, it might be a needle in a haystack.
Lyric:
When I was a young boy
My mama said to me
There’s only one girl in the world for you
And she probably lives in Tahiti
16. Frank Sinatra – Come Fly With Me
Written by Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn, the former a keen pilot, it set the tone for ol’ Blue Eyes album of the same title, conceived as ‘a musical trip around the world’.
Lyric:
Come fly with me, let’s float down to Peru
In lama land there’s a one man band
And he’ll toot his flute for you
17. Counting Crows – Holiday In Spain
Well, we could have gone for ‘Y Viva Espana’ (“he rattled his maracas close to me” is, after all, a killer line), but this is less Sangria-specific.
Lyric:
I may take a holiday in Spain
Leave my wings behind me
Drink my worries down the drain
And fly away to somewhere new
18. Rufus Wainwright – Leaving for Paris
The city Morrissey would rather throw his arms around rather than multi-culti Britannia. Rufus sounds like he’s ready to join the Foreign Legion to oublier. See also Wasted Youth’s ‘Paris France’ (“Stupid French boys think they’re gigolos . . . Maurice Chevalier and all that jazz”)
Lyric:
So I’m leaving for Paris, don’t you try to find out where I am
19. Gogol Bordello – Wonderlust King
Darling, until you’ve seen the Taj Mahal, you simply haven’t lived…
Lyric:
Back in the day, yo, as we learned
A man was not considered to be fully grown
Had he not gone beyond the hills
Had he not crossed the seven seas
20. Dead Kennedys – Holiday In Cambodia
It is arguably the greatest punk song ever written; it’s certainly the most sarcastic. Asked to design a tourism advert in secondary school, I came up with this as a slogan. A long and steep academic decline ensued.
Lyric:
Well you’ll work harder with a gun in your back
For a bowl of rice a day
Slave for soldiers till you starve
Then your head is skewered on a stake
21. John Denver – Leaving on a Jet Plane
Though his destination is obscured, the taxi’s waiting to take him to the airport but really he doesn’t want to go and he’ll be back with a wedding ring. Presumably he can pick up a suitable rock at a discount price from the bazaar.
Lyric:
But, Im leavin on a jet plane
Dont know when Ill be back again
Oh babe, I hate to go
22. The Motors – Airport
Speaking of airports, this is the compulsory incidental music to accompany any consumer TV item featuring footage of planes.
So many destination faces going to so many places
Where the weather is much better
And the food is so much cheaper
23. The Beatles – Back In The USSR
Kudos here for little details: mentioning the omnipresent and ominous paper bag, the BOAC – British Overseas Airways Corporation – and featuring the then novel stereo effect of a plane crossing between your speakers. And Macca on drums, too.
Lyric:
Flew in from Miami Beach BOAC
Didn’t get to bed last night
On the way the paper bag was on my knee
Man, I had a dreadful flight
24. Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here
More about dislocation and disaffection than anything touristy, but by employing the slogan most associated with tacky postcards from foreign climes, it sneaks in.
Lyric:
How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
25. The Four Tops – Goin’ Loco Down in Acapulco
Written by Messrs Dozier and Collins to soundtrack Buster, the tale of Ronnie Biggs’ fellow away on his toes train-robber.
Lyric:
You can hear voices pleading through those warm Latin nights.
Memories are lost and found, leaving broken hearts all over town
26. Bright Eyes – Tourist Trap
Along the lines of Gang Of Four’s ‘At Home He’s A Tourist’, but more specifically addressing the rover’s return.
Lyric:
And the road finally gave me back
But I don’t think I’ll unpack
Because I’m not sure if I live here any more
27. Rachel Sweet – Tourist Boys
A funky Latino deliberation on holiday romances and the limitations thereof.
Lyric:
Tourist boys, away from their mothers
Very expensive part-time lovers
28. Simple Minds – Travel
In which JK sets out all the attractions of yer modern culture binge.
Lyric:
I travel round
Decadence and pleasure towns
Tragedies, luxuries, statues, parks and galleries
29. Typically Tropical – Barbados
Horrific surprise ’75 chart hit. Notable for the voiceover by pretend airline pilot, Tobias Wilcock. The PC shelf-life of the fake Caribbean accent expiring literally the next week. One of them bought an airline or something.
Lyric:
I don’t want to be a bus driver all my life.
I’ve seen too much of Brixton town in the night.
Fly away on Coconut Airways
30. Sex Pistols – Holidays In The Sun
A coruscating filleting of the package holiday concept. While ‘God Save The Queen’ might have equated tourists with money in remarkably succinct terms, this features the boy Jonesy’s greatest riff and a fantastically OTT Wemarchtian intro.
Lyric:
A cheap holiday in other people’s misery
