Rhode Island Gets Props in Several Famous Songs

Rhode Island's official state song is one you have probably never heard of unless you sang it in an assembly at Cranston High School West or as a member of a kindergarten class at Asa Messer Elementary School on Federal Hill while welcoming a visiting dignitary.

The song "Rhode Island's It For Me" was written by Charlie Hall and Maria Day. It was adopted as the state's song in 1996, replacing "Rhode Island" by T. Clarke Brown.

It's a nice little ditty, but not well known.

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"Massachusetts" was a smash hit for the Bee Gees in 1967. The Brothers Gibb even recorded a song about South Dakota.

The Mamas and the Papas scored big with "California Dreamin'," John Denver paid tribute to Colorado, and Sinatra made "New York, New York" seem cool – but what about Rhode Island?

Glenn Frey and Don Henley remembered the "biggest little state in the union" in the Eagles' 1976 song "The Last Resort," which appeared on the Hotel California album. The song describes Providence as a place where "old world shadows hang heavy in the air." It tells how the song's subject "packed her hopes and dreams like a refugee" to skedaddle to greener pastures "just as her father came across the sea."

Not exactly a love ballad to the Ocean State, but there were others.

Ike and Tina Turner recorded something called "Sweet Rhode Island Red," which has nothing to do with Rhode Island, and if you dig way back to 1945, Guy Lombardo released something called "Poor Little Rhode Island," which pokes fun at the state's inadequacies.

HelloMusicTheory.com lists some other not-so-famous tunes about Rhode Island.

The greatest musical tribute ever paid to Rhode Island is the song "Rhode Island Is Famous for You."

According to TrinityRep.com, the song "was written for a 1940s Broadway musical revue." The site says, "The show, titled Inside USA, celebrated the then 48 states."

The song, co-written by Massachusetts native Jack Haley (best known as the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz), has "traditionally been interpreted as a love song."

Blossom Dearie's recording of "Rhode Island Is Famous for You" is considered the standard, though it has been covered by countless others, including Mandy Patinkin. The song also became synonymous with the late Providence Mayor Vincent  A. "Buddy" Cianci, who died in 2021.