Hard to not get caught up in the manic frenzy that is the opening of the movie “The Perfect Host.” The Eagles of Death Metal’s ironic paean to Los Angeles fits the mood perfectly. A mood that is both joyously uplifting while at the same time disturbing beyond the belief. “Wanna Be in L.A.” may not seem likely to ever wind up closing Dodgers games, but then again who would ever have thought that the distinctly paranoid stalker anthem by the Police,”Every Breath You Take,” would become a wedding staple?
So many American cities and so many great songs that are identified with them as a theme, an honorific, an immediately recognizable tune to draw visitors and their cash. Chicago is a toddlin’ town, New York is the town so nice you have to sing its name twice and, of course, it is actually possible to leave San Francisco without courtesy of the heart pumping life-giving blood through the body. But what about Los Angeles? Sure, Randy Newman says he loves L.A., but it sure does sound like he’s being at least as sarcastic as The Eagles of Death Metal. And, btw, does that name mean that they are a high soaring version of Death Metal or that they comprise the Glenn Frey and Don Henley, et. al, of Death Metal? It’s a mystery.
If and when the city of Los Angeles decides to adopt an official song that accurate represents the city as it is instead of as it desperately wants to be, as L.A. County did way back in the 1960s, goodness knows there is no shortage to choose from. Goodness knows. Why, if you were only to consider songs with the words Los Angeles in the title, you’d be listening to songs all day. Songwriters in the city of angels have immortalized their usually adopted hometown in musical form from the punk breakthrough of X’s “Los Angeles” to “The Great Los Angeles Flood” by folk pioneer Woody Guthrie. That city nickname which gave rise to everything from a baseball team to a film noir musical, City of Angels, is nearly as big a favorite for songwriters.
You don’t even want to know how many songs contain the word “Hollywood” but as N.W.A. can rap for you, L.A. is about more than just Beverly Hills, Rodeo Drive and the Business. By which is meant, of course, the Industry.
Speaking of that even shorter nickname for Los Angeles, probably no other reference to the city has been immortalized in song than those two letters that immediately call to mind everything from the beaches to hills to rich, vapid heiresses who become celebrities simply because they are rich, vapid heiresses.
If the folks in charge of these sorts of things really want to pick a song that dives right into the meat of the matter of what message Los Angeles tends to send toward those on the other side, those vapid heiresses and their less wealth brethren inspired what may well be the single most incisive song ever written about the town: “Valley Girl.”
Either that or “Zoot Suit Riot.”
For more articles by Timothy Sexton, check out:
X Plays Entire “Los Angeles” Album on Tour
Zoot Suit Riots: The Real Story
More Films Like “The Perfect Host”