In case you haven't been paying attention, Baltimore now has (another) official slogan: "Home of the Star Spangled Banner." So now what we need, while we in the branding business, is a city song.
We don't have one, but it isn't for lack of trying. We've had lots of attempts.
The first one we know about is Eubie Blake's, "Baltimore Tolodo" in 1910. You haven't heard of it? You're not alone. Few have. How about in 1923, Swartz and Dawson's, "Baltimore, you're the only doctor for me"? Something like, "Baltimore, that's the only doctor for me. I'm gonna go right there, cause I know where, I'll be cared for tenderlee." Not humming along yet? Wait. This gets worse.
In New York's Tin Pan Alley along about this time, a songwriter named Jimmy McHugh wrote the simply titled "Baltimore" and had it recorded by the great Bix Beiderbeck. Maybe his only failure.
What looked like Baltimore's big break came along in the 1930s when the highly successful composer of "Stardust," Hoagy Carmichael, wrote "Baltimore Oriole." Very promising, but, well, even Carmichael had his duds.
At this same time WBAL radio disk jockey Bill Herson wrote, "I Found My Business in Baltimore." It went: "My life's complete because I found my sweet, little business in Baltimore." It died.
In 1962 a 15-year-old boy from East Baltimore, Herbert J. McCarrier Jr., wrote the "Baltimore Trolley Song". "If you go to Pearl and Green, O trolley O, It isn't as far as it seems, O trolley." Oh. Oh well, he was only 15.
A more recent attempt is "The Baltimore Song," by Gohring and O'Brien: "Fallsway, Fells Point, Oriole Magic, McCormick. Leavin' it all, havin' a ball in Baltimore." It went nowhere. The latest was by no less than the then-Mayor Martin O'Malley, "The Battle of Baltimore." The mayor meant the big battle from the War of 1812 and not his daily routine.
So here we are. We got us a slogan. But we are still a city without a song.
Anybody?
Gil Sandler is a popular historian of Baltimore City.