Broadway Songs About Cities: From Chicago to New York and Beyond
Originally created by Tom Williams; expanded and updated September 2026.
Cities have always had a disproportionate role in musical theater. They can be symbols of ambition or home or escape or romance or reinvention, and few American cities have nurtured a more powerful theatrical identity than Chicago.
From New York and Baltimore to Kansas City, Paris, Buenos Aires and beyond, musical theatre keeps turning cities into characters. On ChicagoCritic, we start at home. This collection gathers songs where a city, neighborhood or hometown is essential to the number, plus a few film-musical standards with especially strong Chicago ties.
Broadway & Musical-Theatre City Songs at a Glance
| Song | Musical or Film | Place |
|---|---|---|
| My Kind of Town (Chicago Is) | Robin and the 7 Hoods | Chicago |
| Chicago (That Toddlin’ Town) | Popular standard | Chicago |
| All That Jazz | Chicago | Chicago |
| Roxie | Chicago | Chicago |
| New York, New York | On the Town | New York City |
| NYC | Annie | New York City |
| Another Hundred People | Company | New York City |
| Lullaby of Broadway | 42nd Street | New York City |
| Good Morning Baltimore | Hairspray | Baltimore |
| Gary, Indiana | The Music Man | Gary, Indiana |
| Kansas City | Oklahoma! | Kansas City |
| Oklahoma! | Oklahoma! | Oklahoma |
| Buenos Aires | Evita | Buenos Aires |
| I Love Paris | Can-Can | Paris |
| The Streets of Dublin | A Man of No Importance | Dublin |
| The Lambeth Walk | Me and My Girl | London |
| Anatevka | Fiddler on the Roof | Anatevka |
Songs About Chicago
Chicago songs tend to capture the confidence, nightlife, jazz history and larger-than-life reputation of the city. Some are Broadway, some are film, some are from the American popular-song tradition. Together they demonstrate why Chicago functions so readily as both setting and character.
My Kind of Town (Chicago Is)
Film: Robin and the 7 Hoods | Place: Chicago
“My Kind of Town,” written by Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn, was part of the 1964 movie “Robin and the 7 Hoods.” Frank Sinatra made it one of the most recognizable musical tributes to Chicago. It didn’t come from Broadway and so it’s an important film-musical exception that belongs here. The song’s continued appeal is in the straightforwardness of the love: Chicago is not the background, it is the purpose of the song.
Chicago (That Toddlin’ Town)
Songwriter: Fred Fisher | Place: Chicago
Written decades before the musical Chicago, “Chicago (That Toddlin’ Town)” became a city standard that endured and was later associated closely with Frank Sinatra. It wasn’t a Broadway number originally, but no collection of theatrical and popular songs about cities is complete without one of Chicago’s signature musical calling cards.
All That Jazz
Musical: Chicago | Music and lyrics: John Kander and Fred Ebb
“All That Jazz” doesn’t sing the name of Chicago as a civic anthem, but sets up the world of the city almost instantly. The number conjures the nightlife, the jazz, the sensuality, and the show-business swagger that was at the core of Kander and Ebb’s vision of 1920s Chicago.
Roxie
Musical: Chicago | Music and lyrics: John Kander and Fred Ebb
“Roxie” makes fantasies into celebrities as Roxie Hart fantasizes about turning notoriety into fame. The image epitomizes one of the central ideas about Chicago: a city where crime, newspapers and entertainment can melt into each other until scandal itself is show business.
Why Chicago Makes Such a Great Musical Setting
Chicago offers the musical theater a special mixture of jazz, vaudeville, nightlife, newspaper history, architecture and big-city ambition. The musical Chicago makes those ingredients part of the story it tells: the city is not only the setting for Roxie Hart’s story, but the world that makes its satire of celebrity and sensationalism possible.
From Chicago to Broadway: Songs About New York
No city seems to be more at home in American musical theater than New York. Broadway is part of the city’s identity, and generations of composers have drawn on New York to represent excitement, loneliness, ambition and possibility.
New York, New York
Musical: On the Town | Music: Leonard Bernstein | Lyrics: Betty Comden and Adolph Green
On the Town is about three sailors in New York City for 24 hours. You get that rush right away with “New York, New York. This is the Bernstein/Comden/Green Broadway song, not the later “Theme from New York, New York” made famous by Frank Sinatra.
NYC
Musical: Annie | Place: New York City
“NYC” describes New York through Annie’s sense of discovery. The city’s lights, personalities and constant activity are part of her transformation from orphanage life to a much bigger world.
Another Hundred People
Musical: Company | Music and lyrics: Stephen Sondheim
Sondheim’s “Another Hundred People” is less a city anthem than a portrait of metropolitan motion. People come and go and connect and then they are gone, capturing the possibility and anonymity of New York life.
Lullaby of Broadway
Musical: 42nd Street | Place: Broadway, New York City
“Lullaby of Broadway” was written for the 1935 film Gold Diggers of 1935, and was later a big number in the stage musical 42nd Street. The vision of a Broadway world that is alive at nite makes it a natural fit in a collection of songs where place and show business are inextricable.
Broadway Songs About American Cities
Good Morning Baltimore
Musical: Hairspray | Place: Baltimore
Tracy Turnblad welcomes Baltimore with indomitable optimism in the opening number of Hairspray. Her home and the world that she wants to be part of and change is immediately established as the city.
Gary, Indiana
Musical: The Music Man | Place: Gary, Indiana
In The Music Man, Meredith Willson makes the name “Gary, Indiana” a comic hometown refrain. Gary’s location just over the state line from Chicago gives the song a particularly fitting spot on a Chicago-centric tour of musical-theatre geography.
Kansas City
Musical: Oklahoma! | Music: Richard Rodgers | Lyrics: Oscar Hammerstein II
Will Parker returns from Kansas City with marvelous stories about the supposed modern wonders he discovered there. The numbers work because from the perspective of the rural community to which he returns, the city is progress and sophistication.
Oklahoma!
Musical: Oklahoma! | Place: Oklahoma
The title track takes the idea of a place anthem beyond a single city. Its collective celebration turns geography into identity, folding Oklahoma itself into the resolution of the musical’s emotions.
Cities Around the World
Buenos Aires
Musical: Evita | Place: Buenos Aires
Eva is coming to take over Buenos Aires. The city is a place of opportunity, glamor and ambition, making the number a destination song rather than a nostalgic hometown tribute.
I Love Paris
Musical: Can-Can | Music and lyrics: Cole Porter
Cole Porter’s “I Love Paris” is one of the most blatant declarations of love for a city in musical theater. Instead of linking Paris to a particular time of year or mood, the song celebrates the city throughout the year.
The Streets of Dublin
Musical: A Man of No Importance | Place: Dublin
In ‘The Streets of Dublin’, the city is experienced at street level, through the people, energy and everyday life that give a place its character. It is a nice counterpoint to the grand city anthems elsewhere on this list.
The Lambeth Walk
Musical: Me and My Girl | Place: Lambeth, London
“The Lambeth Walk” is about a particular area of London, not the whole city. Its community spirit shows how musical theater can create a strong sense of place from a district, street or local identity.
Hometowns and Places We Leave Behind
Anatevka
Musical: Fiddler on the Roof | Place: Anatevka
Not all songs about a place are paeans. As the villagers are driven from their homes, “Anatevka” transforms an ordinary village into a symbol of memory, belonging and loss. It is a reminder that musical-theatre geography can have an emotional heft that extends far beyond civic pride.
Chicago on the Musical Stage
The most obvious theatrical example for Chicago audiences is still Kander and Ebb’s Chicago. The city isn’t just a backdrop, with its jazz-tinged score, tabloid satire and vaudeville-style structure. Chicago’s reputation as a city of headline-making crime, entertainment and ambition is baked into the show’s DNA.
That is what makes Chicago different from many of the places in this collection. Some musicals have a city as a destination, but in Chicago the city helps explain the characters themselves. For another look at the city as a storytelling presence, explore our guide to movies set in Chicago.
More Great Songs About Places
There are tons of other songs in musical theater tied to cities, neighborhoods, states and imagined hometowns. The best examples do more than name a place: They tell us what the character wants from that place, what it means to leave it, or why coming home matters.
From Chicago to the World
Two particularly powerful examples of how musical theater turns geography into character come from Chicago and New York. New York is often about arrival and possibility, and the rush of Broadway itself; Chicago has its own mix of jazz, ambition, nightlife and sharp-edged showmanship. From Baltimore to Kansas City, Paris to Dublin to Buenos Aires, the greatest city songs make a place seem part of the story, not just a place for the characters to hang out.
