‘L’ is for Love: Chicago Tracks for the Heart

Musicians draw inspiration from love, loss, heartbreak — even total strangers. Spanning cheesy love songs, heartsick ballads and odes to cliched romance, music lovers have no shortage of Windy City-inspired anthems to enjoy this Valentine’s Day. 

Among the tunes penned in ode to Chicago two categories emerge — songs about being in love in the city and songs about being in love with the city itself.

“Pulaski at Night” by Andrew Bird falls under the former. Backed by a plucked string orchestration, Bird beckons his loved one back to “the city of light,” nodding to Pulaski Road on the city’s West Side.

“I send you a postcard, it says “Pulaski at night” / Come back to Chicago / City of, city of light,” Bird sings. 

“2120 South Michigan Avenue” by The Rolling Stones may lack loving lyrics, but its instrumental sampling in George Thorogood’s “Chicago Bound” turns the tune into a sonnet for the city.

Thorogood sings about leaving home in search of something new, traveling through Georgia, Memphis and St. Louis — but nothing compares to the wonder of Chicago.

“I’m gonna tell you something you oughta know / Chicago’s the best place I ever know,” he sings.

Rock band Styx shares this sentiment in their song “Back to Chicago.” Lead vocalist Dennis DeYoung promises to return home to the city and mend the broken heart he left behind.

“I’m gonna find true love waiting for me / I’m going to make it all work out for good this time,” DeYoung sings.

Not all Chicago ballads are as optimistic, however. Louis Tomlinson’s “Chicago” pleads for reconciliation with a former lover, owning up to past mistakes and prodding at the ghost of bonds once shared.

“They say bitter ends turn sweet in time / But is that true of yours and mine?” “Cause if you’re lonely in Chicago you can call me, baby / Has it been long enough that you can forgive me?” Tomlinson sings.

Other Chicago-based songs speak less to love lost and more to love found. “Chicago” by Frank Sinatra embodies the late legend’s famed big-band stylings, a genre made popular in the very city he fondly sings of.

Sinatra tells listeners the city will help them “lose the blues” —  a theme he continues in his 1965 single “My Kind Of Town,” declaring Chicago’s “razzmatazz” makes him “grin like a clown.” 

“Lake Shore Drive” by Aliotta Haynes Jeremiah captures the carefree spirit of driving down the scenic city highway with the windows down. The song’s cheery piano melody sends listeners on a journey starting at West Hollywood Avenue and continues south to the heart of downtown.

“End of Beginning” by Djo, the stage name of actor Joe Keery, speaks to the singer’s coming of age as a student at DePaul University — a tune whose recent popularity proves the sentiment resonates with many — how love for a special place can change your heart just as a person can.

“And when I’m back in Chicago, I feel it / Another version of me, I was in it / I wave goodbye to the end of beginning,” Keery sings.

Many a musician has found lyrical muse within Chicago’s 234 square miles. Whether it be the scenery, the culture or an idealized version of oneself, the city’s wonder is immortalized through the artistry it inspires and the love both lost and found in the Windy City.