In the recent Last Man Standing about river songs, the Mississippi was only allowed to be mentioned once because there are so many songs that reference it, which got me wondering: Are there more songs about the Mississippi than all other river songs combined? I doubt it but I call upon my fellow townsfolk to settle the issue.  So, I’m looking for songs which either specifically mention the Mississippi, or that clearly reference it geographically. 

I’ll start with “Big River.”

One Mississippi…

Typically, Townspeople suggest one of two types of Last Man Standing topics: those that seem like they may be so specific that the topic is exhausted after 4 entries and those that promise to break the magical mark of 200 entries. Today’s Last Man Standing, suggested offlist by Townsman andyr’s better half, certainly opens the floodgates to the latter variety: songs about rivers.

Now, we can go at least 2 ways with this: songs about specific rivers or all songs about rivers in general. I briefly considered seeing if we could find a song for every river in the rocking, English-speaking world, until I looked it up and found that there are about 250,000 rivers in the United States alone. We’re good, but not that good.

Since I don’t want to exclude one of the most excruciating title tracks in rock history, Bruce Springsteen‘s nonspecific “The River” (now played and, therefore, off the board), let’s keep this competition open to all (almost, see next exclusion) river-referencing rock songs. The judges will, however, rule harshly against streams, creeks, bays, oceans, lakes, ponds, and any other tributaries that fall outside the category of river.

The only other exclusion, just because I need to be a bit of a dick and encourage a degree of difficulty, will be repeat entries of any songs citing the Mississippi River. The first “Mississippi River” entry will be the last one allowed.

Let it flow!