You’ve heard the saying; the best way to get to know a place is through your feet. Although I’m sure the proverb was first uttered innocently; it has come to be wielded by totalitarian travel-companions to ruin a perfectly nice trip with their Strava addiction. This is why I would like to propose a different saying: to really, really know a place, use your ears. I have put together some examples to show you that songs bring you closer to an area than any guidebook.

Chelsea Morning, Joni Mitchell – New York

Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning
And the first thing that I saw
Was the sun through yellow curtains
And a rainbow on the wall

“You can really hear the curiosity and wonder of her early years glimmer through her lyrics”

Having written the song before she had her first record deal, Mitchell called it ‘my Chelsea song’. You can really hear the curiosity and wonder of her early years glimmer through her lyrics. She perfectly captures the essence of New York’s musical scene. Her ability to create clear images attests to her genius lyricism, even then. What better than ‘a rainbow on the wall’ to evoke the sense of hope and excitement of being in a new city with endless possibilities?

Waterloo Sunset, The Kinks - London

But I don’t feel afraid
As long as I gaze on
Waterloo sunset
I am in paradise

Ray Davies’s lyrics hardly need introduction. They bring the fever of London to us from its least beautiful corner. The busy hub of the station, the loneliness of the night and the grime of the Thames are juxtaposed to a hypnotic descending bass line and transcendental rising vocal accompaniment.’ I saw several Waterloo sunsets,’ Davies explains: ‘I was in St Thomas’ Hospital […] when I was really ill as a child, and I looked out on the Thames. Later I used to go past the station when I went to art college on the train. And I met my first girlfriend, who became my first wife, along the Embankment at Waterloo.’ No wonder London Time Out called the hit ‘the Anthem of London’. No song has so perfectly captured the difference between seeing a place through its famous landmarks and truly living a place.

Grantchester Meadows, Pink Floyd – a meadow near Cambridge

See the splashing of the kingfisher flashing to the water
And a river of green is sliding unseen beneath the trees
Laughing as it passes through the endless summer
Making for the sea

Our very own counterpart to Waterloo sunsets, Pink Floyd immortalise the natural oasis to be found beyond Cambridge’s limestone walls. The whimsical plucking of an acoustic guitar, the archaic lyricism and a folksy style transport you to a pasture where the Church clock really does forever stand at ten to three. The song speaks to anyone who feels soothed by a natural space, whether that be a tired student washing off the chaos of exam term, or a little boy of years gone by, chasing a kite.

Penny Lane, The Beatles – Liverpool’s most overlooked street

Penny Lane, the barber shaves another customer
We see the banker sitting waiting for a trim
And then, the fireman rushes in from the pouring rain
Very strange

There is a risk that if you visited this suburban road, without having listened to the song, you would remark on just how ordinary it is. Paul McCartney shows us that the street is anything but, as a historian for his own Babylonian paradise. He sings us on a guided tour of a ‘barber showing photographs’, still there after all these years. As, I am sure, is the ‘fireman with an hourglass’, who holds ‘a portrait of the Queen’ in his pocket.

“Hearing a song about a place gives us more than our feet could ever offer”

Hearing a song about a place gives us more than our feet could ever offer. It provides a window onto the experience that only a true inhabitant has. You know, the difference between your utopian vision of Cambridge as a fresher and three years down the line, when the golden arches of King’s Chapel remind you more of the mysterious meat you once consumed at the Van of death than the triumphs of human intellect. The magic of the mundane detail is that it makes you appreciate your own ‘specific’ places. Does the ‘barber showing photographs’ remind you of how your college uses every bare space available as a reminder of its famous alumni? Is your ‘banker with a motorcar’ by any chance a History of Arts student, bragging about holibops at their country residence? Or does the ‘fireman with an hourglass’ bring to mind your local digicam warrior who has every wevs trip taped on an overflowing pin board?

So next time you travel, skip the endless scrolling on Instagram for things to see, and put together a playlist. Music will bring you to the heart of a city, and take you there before your train has even arrived.