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Grew up in a town that is famous as the place of movie scenes
Noise is always loud, there are sirens all around and the streets are mean
If I can make it here, I can make it anywhere, that's what they say
Seeing my face in lights or my name in marquees found down on Broadway

Even if it ain’t all it seems, I got a pocketful of dreams
Baby, I'm from New York
Concrete jungle where dreams are made of
There's nothing you can't do
Now you're in New York
These streets will make you feel brand new
Big lights will inspire you
Let's hear it for New York, New York, New Yoooork!
On the avenue, there ain't never a curfew, ladies work so hard
Such a melting pot, on the corner selling rock, preachers pray to God
Hail a gypsy cab, takes me down from Harlem to the Brooklyn Bridge
Some will sleep tonight with a hunger for more than an empty fridge

I'm gonna make it by any means, I got a pocketful of dreams
Baby, I'm from New York
Concrete jungle where dreams are made of
There's nothing you can't do
Now you're in New York
These street will make you feel brand new
Big lights will inspire you
Let's hear it for New York, New York, New Yoooork!
One hand in the air for the big city,
Street lights, big dreams all looking pretty
No place in the world that can compare
Put your lighters in the air, everybody say yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
In New York
Concrete jungle where dreams are made of
There's nothing you can't do
Now you're in New York
These streets will make you feel brand new
Big lights will inspire you
Let's hear it for New York, New York, New Yoooork!

Alicia Keys - Empire State Of Mind (YouTube)

Standing on the corner
Just me and Yoko Ono
We was waiting for Jerry to land
Up come a man with a guitar in his hand
Singing, "Have a marijuana if you can"
His name was David Peel
And we found that he was real
He sang, "The Pope smokes dope every day"
Up come a policeman shoved us up the street
Singing, "Power to the people today!"

NYC...NYC...NYC
Que pasa Ny?...Que pasa NY?

Well down to Max's Kansas City
Got down the nitty gritty
With the Elephants Memory Band
Laid something down
As the news spread around
About the Plastic Ono Elephants Memory Band!
And we played some funky boogie
And laid some tutti frutti
Singing, "Long Tall Sally's a man."
Up come a preacherman trying to be a teacher
Singing, "God's a red herring in drag!"

NYC...NYC...NYC
Que pasa Ny?...Que pasa NY?

Well we did the Staten Island Ferry
Making movies for the telly
Played the Fillmore and Apollo for freedom
Tried to shake our image
Just a cycling through the Village
But found that we had left it back in London
Well nobody came to bug us
Hustle us or shove us
So we decided to make it our home
If the Man wants to shove us out
We gonna jump and shout
The Statue of Liberty said, "Come!"

NYC...NYC...NYC
Que pasa Ny?...Que pasa NY?

John Lennon - New York City (YouTube)

Holly came from Miami F-L-A
hitchhiked her way across USA
plucked her eyebrows on the way
shaved her legs and then he was a she
she says "Hey babe take a walk on the wild side"
said "Hey honey take a walk on the wild side"

Candy came from out on the island
in the backroom she was everybody's darling
but she never lost her head
even when she was given head
she says "Hey babe take a walk on the wild side"
said "Hey babe take a walk on the wild side"

And the coloured girls go "doo doodoo…"

Little Joe never once gave it away
everybody had to pay and pay
a hustle here and a hustle there
New York City is the place where
they said "Hey babe take a walk on the wild side"
I said "Hey Joe take a walk on the wild side"

Sugar Plum Fairy came and hit the streets
looking for soul food and a place to eat
went to the Apollo
you should've seen him go go-go
they said "Hey sugar take a walk on the wild side"
I said "Hey babe take a walk on the wild side"
alright huh

Jackie is just speeding away
thought she was James Dean for a day
then I guess she had to crash
valium would've helped that bash
she said "Hey babe take a walk on the wild side"
I said "Hey honey take a walk on the wild side"

And the coloured girls said "Doo doodoo…"

Lou Reed - Walk On The Wild Side life 1982 (YouTube)

Start spreading the news
I am leaving today
I want to be a part of it
New York, New York

These vagabond shoes
They are longing to stray
Right through the very heart of it
New York, New York

I want to wake up in that city
That doesn't sleep
And find I'm king of the hill
Top of the heap

My little town blues
They are melting away
I gonna make a brand new start of it
In old New York

If I can make it there
I'll make it anywhere
It's up to you
New York, New York

New York, New York
I want to wake up in that city
That never sleeps
And find I'm king of the hill
Top of the list
Head of the heap
King of the hill

These are little town blues
They have all melted away
I am about to make a brand new start of it
Right there in old New York

And you bet [Incomprehensible] baby
If I can make it there
You know, I'm gonna make it just about anywhere
Come on, come through
New York, New York, New York

Frank Sinatra - New York, New York (YouTube)

Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re tryin' to be so quiet?
We sit here stranded, though we’re all doin’ our best to deny it
And Louise holds a handful of rain, temptin’ you to defy it
Lights flicker from the opposite loft
In this room the heat pipes just cough
The country music station plays soft
But there’s nothing, really nothing to turn off
Just Louise and her lover so entwined
And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind

In the empty lot where the ladies play blindman’s bluff with the key chain
And the all-night girls they whisper of escapades out on the “D” train
We can hear the night watchman click his flashlight
Ask himself if it’s him or them that’s really insane
Louise, she’s all right, she’s just near
She’s delicate and seems like the mirror
But she just makes it all too concise and too clear
That Johanna’s not here
The ghost of ’lectricity howls in the bones of her face
Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place

Now, little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously
He brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously
And when bringing her name up
He speaks of a farewell kiss to me
He’s sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all
Muttering small talk at the wall while I’m in the hall
How can I explain?
Oh, it’s so hard to get on
And these visions of Johanna, they kept me up past the dawn

Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while
But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues
You can tell by the way she smiles
See the primitive wallflower freeze
When the jelly-faced women all sneeze
Hear the one with the mustache say, “Jeeze
I can’t find my knees”
Oh, jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule
But these visions of Johanna, they make it all seem so cruel

The peddler now speaks to the countess who’s pretending to care for him
Sayin’, “Name me someone that’s not a parasite and I’ll go out and say a prayer for him”
But like Louise always says
“Ya can’t look at much, can ya man?”
As she, herself, prepares for him
And Madonna, she still has not showed
We see this empty cage now corrode
Where her cape of the stage once had flowed
The fiddler, he now steps to the road
He writes ev’rything’s been returned which was owed
On the back of the fish truck that loads
While my conscience explodes
The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain
And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain

Bob Dylan - Visions of Johanna Awful video - just listen to the song while surfing this site

W-Seminar project of Maria-Theresia-Gymnasium, Augsburg
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