This interactive map shows what cities feature in the most songs

There are things that, if asked, you’d just know, without actually knowing them. Could you lift Jason Momoa? No. You don’t have to have that worked out for you, you just know it. Nobody could lift Jason Momoa. Are there more trees that people? Yeah? Yeah. Probably, for definite.

What city are there more songs about than anywhere else? Ask anyone that and they’ll respond the same way: New York. Without counting or checking or anything, it just seems to make sense - there’s the Alicia Keys one, and Frank Sinatra, and the Christmas one with the bad f-word in it, loads. Right?

Right! It turns out, thanks to some counting done by people (or machines) paid (or programmed) by Celebrity Cruises, it is indeed.

By scanning the lyrics of over 200,000 charting singles from the past 60 years, the Big Apple was found to be the clear frontrunner, featuring in 161 charting songs, while our own London came in second place with 102. 

Here is the top 20, although Compton is arguably part of Los Angeles, which would nudge LA ahead of London…

1. New York, USA – 161 songs
2. London, UK – 102 songs
3. Los Angeles, USA – 87 songs
4. Paris, France – 52 songs
5. Miami, USA – 46 songs
6. New Orleans, USA – 43 songs
7. Rome, Italy – 30 songs
8. San Francisco, USA – 28 songs
9. Memphis, USA – 28 songs
10. Chicago, USA – 24 songs
11. Atlanta, USA – 23 songs
12. Detroit, USA – 23 songs
13. Compton, USA – 21 songs
14. Tokyo, Japan – 20 songs
15. Houston, USA – 16 songs
16. Las Vegas, USA – 16 songs
17. Ibiza, Spain – 12 songs
18. Mumbai, India – 11 songs
19. Liverpool, UK – 11 songs
20. Milan, Italy – 10 songs

They also looked at which artists name the most places in their songs, with Drake topping the list.

1. Drake – 29 places
2. Jay Z – 27 places
3. Elvis Presley – 23 places
4. Tinie Tempah – 22 places
5. The Beach Boys – 22 places
6. Public Enemy – 20 places
7. Chuck Berry – 18 places
8. The Rolling Stones – 16 places
9. Rod Stewart – 14 places
10. T.I – 14 places

There’s a really interesting interactive map that they’ve put together, where you can search by artist, genre and decade to see how and when different places have suddenly become really sung-about. 

Check the map out here, and then, like, book a cruise? Is that how these things are meant to work? Go for it!

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(Pics: Pixabay)