4 songs about Los Angeles

A highly selective musical snapshot of the city

I’ll say right off the bat that I have a love-hate relationship with America’s largest non-New York city. I fell in love with it, went to college there, had some fun, had some heartache, got really sick of it and have rarely been back since.

But I was back there recently for a conference and admit that, after first landing at LAX and thinking, “Why would anyone ever live here?” it started to grow on me again. And I could imagine in another life, as a grown adult, actually enjoying the place.

There have been so many representations of Los Angeles in pop culture that cataloging them would be impossible. I instead point to the handful of songs that inevitably run through my brain when I think of the city. Maybe you have your own.

My thought process starts with Lyle Lovett’s “LA County.”

It’s such an upbeat song! And Lyle Lovett has such a smooth voice!

And wow, it’s a song about killing your ex-lover at the altar! Cheers, California!

The fun of that song is the disconnect between the lyrics and the music, while “Cruiser” by the Red House Painters takes a melancholy approach.

“Her life song is a sad one …”

Red House Painters is the old band of Mark Kozelek, also known as that guy who had a part in the band in “Almost Famous,” which also has a Southern California thing going on.

I like “Cruiser” for the metronomic guitar licks that modulate slightly throughout the song as Kozelek namedrops Los Angeles locales: Sunset Boulevard, Beverly Drive, the 405 — “Morning pours the ocean deep…” — before he leaves L.A. “sparkling on the ground” from his airplane.

But there are few creatures so truly Los Angeles as Beck. Though his songs typically reference things like “asspants” and his “job blowing leaves” more than this or that freeway sign, I always think of the L.A. area when I hear “Debra,” merely because of the one reference to Glendale.

“I said, lady, step inside my Hyundai. I’m gonna take you up to Glendale, take you for a real good meal.”

On the positive side, I’d like to think the better half of Los Angeles is captured perfectly in R.E.M.’s “Electrolite,” again, not a song that drips with references to the city, but the mention of Mulholland Drive is central.

Such an upbeat, sunshiny ride. (Extra points for the Steve McQueen reference.)