"I Love Livin' in the City" | |
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Song |
"I Love Livin' in the City" is the first single by the punk rock band Fear. It was originally released in 1978 on the Los Angeles-based Criminal Records.
Background
The single's A-side was re-recorded twice: once during the group's unreleased 1979 sessions, and again for its debut album The Record.
"I Love Livin' in the City" is also featured on two video game soundtracks, The Warriors and Tony Hawk's Underground 2. It also appeared in the movie SLC Punk.
Legacy
USC film professor David E. James has cited this song as a paradigm of punk's "style that would always be in the process of pushing itself over into self-parody", and he compared its imagery to the work of Charles Bukowski.[1] Oregon State film studies professor Jon Lewis said the lyrics exemplified punk's perception of "the aesthetics of ugliness that characterize downtown LA". [2] A 2001 Spin magazine retrospective about the L.A. punk scene found it to be "a virtual prototype for the reality-of-my-surroundings gangsta rap of the late '80s."[3] In a 2016 list of "best love songs inspired by NYC", Village Voice critic Kim Kelly described the song as "a shit-stained love letter to the filthy beating heart of the city itself" and as Fear's "magnum opus and an instantly recognizable battle cry for anyone who calls this big, beautiful bastard city home."[4]
Track listing
A) "I Love Livin' in the City" (1:54)
B) "Now You're Dead" (2:00)
Personnel
- Lee Ving – vocals
- Burt Good – guitar
- Derf Scratch – bass, vocals
- Johnny Backbeat – drums
References
- ^ David E. James, "Poetry/Punk/Production: Some Postmodern Writing in L.A.", in David E. James (1996). Power Misses: Essays Across (un)popular Culture. Verso. p. 201. ISBN 978-1-85984-101-3.
- ^ Jon Lewis, "City/Cinema/Dream", in Caws, Mary Ann (26 November 2013). City Images: Perspectives from Literature, Philosophy and Film. Taylor & Francis. pp. 245–. ISBN 978-1-134-29605-7.
- ^ Brendan Mullen and Marc Spitz, "Sit on My Face, Stevie Nicks: The Germs, Darby Crash, and the Biorth of SoCal Punk", Spin, May 2001, p. 101, 106.
- ^ "Here Are the Best Love Songs Inspired by NYC", The Village Voice, February 11, 2016.
External links