Ah, the Midwest. Whether you’re from Illinois (like me) or Minnesota or Michigan, or everywhere in between, you probably feel at least a little bit of yearning for the corn fields and cold weather of the Midwest. The Midwest really does have its own special sort of energy, and plenty of musicians have written about it. And if you’re feeling particularly nostalgic, the following three songs about the Midwest might be just what you need.
“Sweet Home Chicago” by Buddy Guy
I can’t have a list of nostalgic songs about the Midwest without including at least one blues song. “Sweet Home Chicago” is a blues standard first recorded by the legendary Robert Johnson way back in the 1930s. However, Buddy Guy’s many versions of this classic Chicago blues tune are what many people today have heard. He famously performed this song with then-President Barack Obama back in the 2010s.
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“9th & Hennepin” by Tom Waits
Nobody knows how to romanticize a place, no matter how ambiguous, quite like experimental jazz and Americana singer/songwriter Tom Waits. “9th & Hennepin” is a bit of a deep cut off of his 1985 record Rain Dogs. It’s a spoken word track that is technically about a dark corner in Minneapolis, Minnesota, but Waits himself said that much of the imagery in the song was inspired by New York. Still, the song is an incredible vibe, so I’m including it on this list.
“Detroit Rock City” by KISS
How about a little hard rock and heavy metal? “Detroit Rock City” by KISS might be the most famous song about Detroit, Michigan, out there. Though, plenty of musicians through the years have penned their own odes to this city. I think “Detroit Rock City” is one of the most nostalgic songs about the Midwest you’ll find, especially if you were around in 1976 when this song first dropped.
This track is a tribute of sorts to Detroit, but there’s also a little bit of recognition of the city’s more dangerous edge, as the rock fan in the song ends up getting into a fatal car accident on the way to a “midnight show.” According to Paul Stanley, they wrote the song because “Detroit really embraced us before any other city. We were an opening act everywhere else, but in Detroit we were a headliner.”
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