Los Angeles has never had a song the way Chicago has a song or New York has a song, probably because nobody ever recorded an encore-at-Caesars belter about it. What L.A. songs there are tend to be frankly metaphorical (the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Under the Bridge") or possess too-weird-for-the-garden-club vagaries (the Doors"'L.A. Woman" purrs like a Harley until Jim Morrison swerves into the ditch with "Mr. Mojo Risin"' business).
The closest we've got to a full-tilt, hummable city anthem is Randy Newman's "I Love L.A," which probably indicts as much as it celebrates. The latter was apparently lost on the elders at the New Los Angeles Marketing Partnership, the boosterish business and government consortium in charge of redeeming L.A.'s riot- and earthquake-tossed image. LAMP wanted to feature "I Love L.A." in its $4.5-million print, TV and radio campaign lauchned this year but "the price was exorbitant--well into six figures," says Rich Jarc, senior vice president at LAMP's ad agency Davis, Ball & Colombatto. As luck would have it, David Anderson and Bert Kelly, also Davis, Ball vice presidents, moonlight as jingle writers. After a few sessions at the keyboard, they had a nifty new "anthem for the city" called, "Together We're the Best." Here is the first verse:
