The meaning behind Glenn Frey’s “You Belong to the City” has to do with an iconic TV show. And an epic era of Midtown Manhattan, as well.
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The Ultimate ’80s Style and Song Tastemaker
Back in the mid 1980s, Miami Vice was not only a hit television show about two very slickly-dressed undercover vice cops. It married MTV-style visuals with popular songs of the day and appearances by pop and rock stars themselves. The show was one of the biggest of the decade, and it was highly influential in terms of fashion. Executive producer Michael Mann made a grittier 2006 film version, but it didn’t have the same magical vibe as the original.
Eagles member Glenn Frey was involved in four episodes of the show. He played smuggler and Vietnam vet Jimmy Cole in the episode “Smuggler’s Blues,” and had three different songs used in four episodes. One of those tunes was “You Belong to the City.” It was for a two-part episode in which Crockett and Tubbs (Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas) go to New York City in pursuit of a Colombian drug lord. Tubbs originally hailed from the Big Apple.
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Frey co-wrote “You Belong to the City” with Jack Tempchin and recorded it exclusively for the show. It was also used in a series of Pepsi commercials featuring him and Don Johnson that same year. Frey played all the parts except sax and drums. The song became one of Frey’s biggest hits (reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 single chart and No. 6 in Canada) along with “The Heat Is On” (from the Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack) which reached also hit No. 2.
“What a Phrase”
For a 2019 episode of the podcast Backstory Song, Tempchin recalled how Frey got involved with the show.
“Well, Glenn had met Michael Mann on a plane and Michael Mann was creating a television show called Miami Vice, which Glenn later acted in one of the episodes,” Tempchin told host Doug Burke. “He played the smuggler, who flew the plane. That we have the song ‘Smuggler’s Blues.’ But they also sent us an episode where one of the two guys, the detectives goes back to New York City, where he is from and he’s walking the streets of New York City. So we wrote a song for that. And I remember Glenn was just strumming an E minor chord. And all of a sudden, he goes, ‘You belong to the city.’ And I just went, ‘Yeah, that’s it, that’s it!’ What a phrase, You belong to the city. The guy is going back and he doesn’t fit in, but he does fit in. And so we wrote that song directly for that show.”
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The Video(s)
There are two versions of the video. The one on YouTube features images of that Miami Vice episode whenever a TV is in view, whether at a bar or security desk of display window. The clip opens with a sax player. He may be Bill Bergman, who recorded the part and surfaces throughout the song and video. He’s playing that very ‘80s instrument before we find Frey brooding by his window. He’s gazing out at the Empire State Building, before wandering into Midtown Manhattan as the camera tracks alongside him.
At the same, an equally lonely young lady (Lisa Parker) seems to have been stood up for dinner at her apartment. So she also journeys into the same area. After a couple of close encounters, she comes up to him on the street. They take a stroll, and eventually end up back at her place (at 200 W. 57th Street). He leaves the building at the crack of dawn. It’s so very ‘80s. (Interesting trivia tie-in: Parker did a Tab commercial in 1983.)
A Different Time, and Place
The video runs close to six minutes long. The romantic mid-tempo track makes for a great soundtrack to images of midtown Manhattan and specifically Times Square. Anyone who lived in the city at that time will recognize a lot of the elements of the day. A sea of taxis heading down Broadway. Tourist shops. A large newsstand (remember those?). An old-school arcade. A New York Times truck. The Hotel Roger Smith. Various lighted marquises (including strip clubs). Various street performers and vendors (selling meat or items that “fell off a truck”). And steam and neon. Lots of neon. The Brooklyn Bridge, Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, and World Trade Center also appear on the skyline. The arch in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village makes a quick cameo too. Frey even gets an “I’m walking here” moment with a cab driver.
Central Falls, where Frey and Parker make eye contact across the bar, was a real watering hole. It was located at West Broadway and Houston right around SoHo. Like many establishments of the time, it is long gone. The now-defunct Tin Pin Alley Bar and Sbarro restaurant also appear in separate shots.
An Authentic NYC Travelogue
New York City was certainly captured on film in many different ways back then. But this particular video makes a nice travelogue. It captures the vibe of a lonely individual wandering through New York City at night. An interesting thing to note about the city back then is how lonely you could be while being surrounded by millions of people. The song’s lyrics itself are exactly about that, as Tempchin mentioned. The song when married to this video actually gives off an authentic vibe since it’s capturing plenty of ordinary people. It’s less flashy than other clips of the time, often using available light for the street shots.
There’s a certain innocence and romanticism that existed in ‘80s videos that you’re no longer going to find today. True, you could only show certain things on television at the time. But it certainly feels like this is an era long past. Despite being less dangerous today, New York City had a lot more character back then. The Rock and Roll vibe of the city has also dwindled in recent years as hyper-gentrification set in.
Loneliness, however, is an epidemic that is growing nationwide. So this video feels a bit more timely now than it did back then.
Photo by Paul Natkin/Getty Images
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