ere are the criteria for making this list: We're tracking songs from the post-Depression era to present. The song must be a bona-fide national pop, country, blues or jazz composition. Officially commissioned anthems and university fight songs are excluded from the list (thus the absence of ditties like "There is No Place Like Nebraska"). We will continue to keep our ears and eyes open and add to this list as titles become available. And, we'd love to hear from you if you know of other songs that should be included here.

• Omaha, Nebraska, Groucho Marx, (circa) 1940
  Also known as There's A Place Called Omaha, Nebraska, this Groucho Marx signature tune, penned by famed songwriter Gus Kahn, features a series of non-sequiters. Go and figure these lyrics: "There's a place called Omaha, Nebraska, in the foothills of Tennessee."
  

• Omaha Flash, Johnny Otis, 1946
  A Greek-American widely acknowledged as one of the pioneers of R&B, Johnny Otis headed a variety of ensembles, including the Johny Otis Quartet, the Johnny Otis Quintent, the Johnny Otis Orchestra and the Johnny Otis Show. One of his bands was, for a brief time in the 1940s, based in Omaha and featured Preston Love (see Omaha BBQ, below). This instrumental number is named in honor of his adopted city.
  

• Omaha Blues, Big Joe Williams, late 1940s(?)
  In this song, legendary bluesman Big Joe Williams (no relation to the silky smooth jazz vocalist who sang with Count Basie) sings of his gal pal (though that isn't quite the term he uses) who "lives on 24th and Lake." Williams, whose work went largely unknown until the Delmark label began reissuing it in the early 1960s, performed in the classic country blues style. His delta accent results in one of the most interesting pronounciations of the Cornhusker State's name on record ("Yubasta"). (Noted by Ryan Roenfeld)
  

• Omaha, Stan Freberg, (circa) 1957
  Probably the best -- and most geographically precise -- song about Nebraska, this novelty hit from the 1950s features memorable lines like " Omaha moon, keep shining on Omaha, keep shining down; we'd like it if you wouldn't shine on Council Bluffs."
  
  

• Kansas City Star, Roger Miller, 1964
  Sure, it's an paean to Kansas City. But the narrator's declaration of affection for KC is prompted by a job offer from a TV station in Nebraska -- hence the sentiment, "No thanks Omaha, thanks a lot."
  

• Omaha, Moby Grape, 1967
  One of Moby Grape's few charting singles -- climbing all the way to 88 on the Billboard charts. It's not clear from the lyrics why the song was named "Omaha."
  

• Omaha BBQ, Preston Love, (circa) 1967
  The title track from this LP (just recently released on CD -- see our store) from jazz/soul pioneer and long-time Omaha World-Herald columnist Preston Love is an instrumental. All the songs have a food theme, and the cover features Love grinning as he prepares some good ol' Omaha steaks.

• Omaha Rainbow, John Stewart, 1969
  Track from folk/rock pioneer's "California Bloodlines" album. "Keeping my eyes on the Omaha Rainbow/Making the rain go out of my way/A-keeping my eyes on the Omaha rainbow/Going down the same roads as my younger days."
  

• Tulsa Turnaround, Kenny Rogers & the First Edition, ca. 1970
  Ed Zorinsky? Al Veys? It's not clear to which Omaha leader Kenny is referring when he warbles, "Omaha sherrif and his boys getting ready for slaughter/Looking for the man who turned out the mayor's daughter." Later in the song, an "Omaha honey" teaches Kenny the eponymous Tulsa turnaround -- a dance taught her by a "funky butt" (Arthur Murray?). (Noted by Marlen Frost)
  

• We're an American Band, Grand Funk Railroad, 1973
  A sensitive ode to star-boinkers, this GFR signature song recalls a moment of debauchery in an Omaha hotel room with "four young chaquitas." (Noted by Michael Grant, Ph.D.)
  

• Omaha, Waylon Jennings, 1974
  This album cut was featured on Jennings's breakthough release, "Honky Tonk Heroes," which was comprised exclusively of material by Billy Joe Shaver. The song tells the of a rambler who comes back to his home town Omaha because it's been "weighing heavy on my mind."
  

• Wildfire, Michael Murphey, 1975
  The Cornhusker state is the setting for this song, which was a big pop hit for Coloradoan Murphey. In the early 1980s, he had a string of country hits under the name "Michael Martin Murphey." and re-recorded Wildfire for a greatest hits package.
  

• Omaha Celebration, Pat Metheny, 1976
  This track from 1976's "Bright Size Life" is just one of several ditties dedicated to Metheny's midwestern roots. Other tracks include "Missouri Uncompromised" and "Midwestern Dreams."

• William Brown, Randy Newman, 1979
  A strikingly simple narrative about a tobacco man who escapes the pressures of North Carolina (?!) for the simple life in Omaha. Of this song from the LP "Born Again," Newman says, "I wanted to write something flat in which nothing happens emotionally. Now I've done it."
  

• Nebraska Sunrise, Buddy Knox, 1982
  This 1982 recording by rockabilly legend is a laconic country tune about life in Nebraska, and how the state is overlooked by politicians and the general public.

• Nebraska, Bruce Springsteen, 1982
  Springsteen named an entire album after the Cornhusker state -- at the time, local rocker Charlie Burton threatened to name his next record "New Jersey" in retaliation. Only the cover art and the title track evoke the Cornhusker state. However, the mood for this dark record is set by Nebraska, a first-person retelling of Charlie Starkweather's killing spree. "From the town of Lincoln, Nebraska, with a sawed off .410 on my lap..." In 2000, a tribute to this influential album was released; Adam Seymour and Chrissie Hynde covered the title track.
  

• Cornhusker Refugee, Austin Lounge Lizards, 1988
  "Take me back to the flatlands, good old welcome mat land." From the Lizards' "Highway Cafe of the Damned," the narrative takes place in a bar in San Francisco, to which the narrator has escaped because it wasn't cool "to be gay in Lodgepole, Nebraska."
  

• Hazard, Richard Marx, 1991
  "I need to make it to the river, And leave this old Nebraska town." This Richard Marx song, set in the Nebraska town of Hazard (population 78), tells the story of a mentally ill man who is accused of murder. (Noted by Don & Mandy Becker.)
  

• Omaha (Sharpless), Chicksaw Mudd Puppies, 1991
  One of the strangest sounding bands ever to ink a major record label deal, this "conscientiously rustic" duo from Athens, GA, included the CCR-esque "Omaha" on its Mercury debut, "8-Track Stomp." The difficult-to-discern lyrics appear to be about someone named Sharpless who wonders "what they're doing back in Omaha."

• Omaha, Counting Crows, 1993
  "Somewhere in the middle of America" -- that's the extent of the description that this cut from the Crows' debut CD offers of its namesake city. Written by Baltimore native and Crows lead singer Adam Duritz, the song garnered significant airplay from AOR stations in 1993.
  

• Three Years in Nebraska, Kate Jacobs, 1995
  This New Jersey-based folk song singer's ode to the Cornhusker state largely focuses on how easy it is to grow and sell ditch weed.
  

• Omaha Stylee, 311, 1996
  Omaha-Westside High's own grunge, hair-spinning power trio paid tribute to their home town on this track from their CD, "Grassroots." The band also referenced its native turf with its CD titled titled "The Omaha Sessions."
  

• Nebraska Song, Sawyer Brown, 1997
  Mawkish tribute to Brook Berringer, the Univ. of Nebraska's backup quarterback during their championship seasons of 1995 and 1996. Shortly after Nebraska won the National Championshp, Berringer died when a plane he was flying crashed.
  

• I Hate to Wake Up Sober in Nebraska, Free Hot Lunch, 1997
  A Madison, Wisc-based bluegrass band, Free Hot Lunch (members Jeff Laramie, Jeff Berg and John Corning) clearly experienced the same thing many midwesterners have -- the endless drive west through Nebraska en route to Colorado. Sample lyrics: "It's still 5 hours to Ogallala / And 300 miles to that Colorado line." (Thanks to Lauranne Bailey for details and sound clip.)
  

• Dressed Up Like Nebraska, Josh Rouse, 1998
  alt.country up-and-comer hails from Nebraska, and pays tribute to his native state in the title track from his debut CD.
  

• Nebraska, Moe., 1998
  Eclectic New York-based band paid tribute to the state on its 1998 CD Tin Cans and Car Tires.
  

• Nebraska, The Nields, 1998
  Folk-rock quintent's 1998 release, Play, includes a song called "Nebraska," about a child of divorce forced to grow up "west of Omaha" because that's where "the car broke down."
  

• Nebraska, Cash Brothers, 1999
  An ode to Bruce Springsteen's classic CD, this track appears on Canadian brothers Andrew and Peter Cash's How Was Tomorrow, released in 2001, as well as on 1999's Raceway. "I'm just driving around, listening to Nebraska."
  

• Maybe, Maybe Not, Mindy McCready, 2002
  The song's protagonist ponders whether "freaky" phenomena (finding a coin in her laundry, hearing a radio station play a song -- real Twilight Zone stuff) are signs that she should call her old love in Omaha. (Noted by Mandy & Don Becker.)
  

Jess Peterson, of the Historic Omaha web site, notes two songs about Omaha that precede the period covered by this web site -- The Omaha Song and I Want to Grow with Growing Omaha.

Know of more? Please let us know. Write us at julesthecat@hotmail.com.

© 2002, Goleta Publishing, Alexandria, VA. /// Updated July 27, 2002