Home | Songs By Year | Songs from 1978
New York, New York (So Good They Named It Twice)
Buy New York, New York (So Good They Named It Twice) now from AmazonFirst, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the song. And once you've experienced the song, tell everyone what you thought about it.
Wikipedia article
"'New York, New York (So Good They Named It Twice)'" is a song performed and composed by singer-songwriter Gerard Kenny in 1978. The song is an ode to his hometown and state New York, New York.
Kenny wrote the song about myth versus fact and explains that the city is overall a great place ("It was a really nice night for a good street fight or a robbery / But I always knew in my home town that would never happen to me"). The line "So Good They Named It Twice" is a play on the fact the name of the city and state are both "New York".
"New York, New York" (as it is sometimes simply called) was the first hit for Kenny after a number of non-charting singles in the United States. In 1978, after moving to England, the song was released. Although it only reached number 42 on the UK Singles Chart, it remained there for two months. It also received some airplay, and was included on Kenny's 'Made It Through the Rain' album, and the song's popularity helped the collection reach the top 20 in the UK Albums Chart.
Shirley Bassey later covered the song, as part of her "New York Medley", along with "Theme from New York, New York".
The song was included on the following albums released by Kenny:
*'Made It Through the Rain' (1979)
*'The Music of Gerard Kenny' (1984)
*'In Concert' (2007)
The song was also parodied in the Beautiful South song "Liar's Bar" in which there was the line "singing: 'whisky, whiskey...so good they named it twice'".
On the 1959 album by George Russell, 'New York, NY' (Decca Records), on the first track, Rodgers and Hart's "Manhattan", vocalist Jon Hendricks says at 0:44 "... a city so nice, they had to name it twice..."
References
Category:1978 singles
Category:Gerard Kenny songs
Category:Songs about New York City
Category:1978 songs
Category:Songs written by Gerard Kenny
Buy New York, New York (So Good They Named It Twice) now from Amazon
<-- Return to songs from 1978