Day 80 - Place name references
Lately I've heard a lot of American music and a lot of British pop music, and noticed something very interesting. Much of the popular American music is filled with references to places in America (e.g., Hotel California, Devil Went Down to Georgia, Sweet Home Alabama), and these kinds of songs are still very popular here. But popular British music almost never has such references. There's no Hotel Cambridgeshire, Devil went down to Devon, or Sweet Home Birmingham (not the one in Alabama).I think the reason for this is that they want their pop music to appeal to Americans, and British place references would make it sound too British. Americans on the other hand, don't care as much about the relatively small British market. Hence, they don't mind using a lot of American references. This might be yet another reason why Brits know more about America the we do about them -- they listen to songs about us. We don't listen to songs about them.
American place names are surprisingly popular here and in the rest of Europe. My favorite "high street" clothing stores (Burton, Topman, Envy, Republic) all sell clothes with American place names on them -- especially California. Even in places like France and Italy, many of the clothes they sell have names of American states, cities, or universities on them.
Sometimes they're somewhat obscure places. I've seen more "Utah" and "Iowa State University" shirts here than in America outside of those two states. The same can't be said the other way around. As much as I'd love to walk into an American clothing store and find shirts that say "Gloucestershire" or "University of Essex" on them, I don't think that's ever gonna happen.
7 Comments:
Er, Solsbury Hill, Penny Lane.
More streets and landmarks than towns and cities probably.
Er,... yeah good point!
Maybe its time to start a trend - we should send you home with clothing printed with UK place names. There's some real comedy places to pick from.
Yes! hehe ;)
I realized, I have a light grey tshirt that has "Oxford University" on it. Even has the shield. Norman got it for me when he was in England. :D
When you get back to Norman this January, you will totally be able to find me walking around campus with a scarf with Oxford prominently displayed. And if there were a song called Devil Went down to Devon, I would listen to it.
I think the "Oxford" stuff is a lot more popular with Americans than with Oxford students & alumni from England. When I see someone (especially around London) with an Oxford sweatshirt, I immediately think "American tourist", which usually turns out to be correct. But I haven't spent all that much time in Oxford (I don't particularly like it there) so I'm not sure how Oxford people feel about them. The only Oxford students I know are grad students here at Reading, and I've never seen them wear Oxford stuff or Reading stuff.
another case of not getting excited about much?
I carnt read and I carnt right but that don't really matter cus i'm a lad from gloucestershire and i can driver a tractor!!!!!! yeah you mentioned us, although i'm not a farmer actually live in gloucester which is a city about the same size as reading. Just find the song funny ! Btw did you go to Gloucester when you were in England? It's got a really good cathedral were part of Harry Potter was filmed..
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