Rich here, continuing with the subject of songs whose lyrics are comprised of lists.
One of the most covered List Songs of all pays tribute to America's most famous highway, "Route 66." When World War 2 got over, Americans got in their cars and drove westwards, including Bobby Troup, who drove cross-country from Pennsylvania toward the sunshine and beaches of California in 1946 in hopes of becoming a successful Hollywood songwriter. Picking up Route 66 in Chicago, he wrote a song that listed towns he passed through along the way until he finally arrived on the shores of the Pacific Ocean.
(An aside: Troup's listing of towns that dot Route 66 is so accurate that in the early 2000's, my son's 8th grade geography teacher assigned his class to memorize the lyrics to the song.)
Troup's "Route 66" soon caught the attention of jazz musician Nat "King Cole" and his trio, who released the first recorded version of the song, which was then quickly picked up by other jazz and R&B musicians, including Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters and The Rolling Stones (who changed the lyrics to describe towns in the UK). Over the years, hundreds of artists have recorded "Route 66," but my favorite version is by The Manhattan Transfer (1981), who won a Grammy for their hip, jazzy list of all the towns encountered along the famous highway.
THIS IS A P.S.: By the late '50s and early '60s, the actual Route 66 had developed so much popular and cultural importance that CBS developed an entire TV series focusing on the adventures of two photogenic young men traversing the country in a Corvette convertible, Chevrolet's hot new sports car, and encountering crime and drama in the towns they encountered along the route. The show's theme music doesn't include a list; it doesn't have lyrics at all, but Nelson Riddle's theme for the series is one of the greats in TV history.
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