Playing more than 100 shows a year around the country has given Nashville singer-songwriter Steve Forbert a train conductor’s connoisseurship of town names. In Strange Names & New Sensations, his twelfth studio album, he has showcased some of his favorites in the song “Strange Names (North New Jersey’s Got ‘Em).”
Thirteen towns are woven into the silly rhymes, among them: “I’m from Piscataway, I’m going that-a-way/ West on the Jersey map, out towards the Water Gap/ I’ve seen Parsippany, northwest of Whippany/ Mahwah to Hackensack, I’ve made the trip and back…”
The names “became hard to ignore,” says Forbert, 52. “After years of touring through New Jersey, it became more of a Why not? I just put the pieces together.”
He hits most of the obvious candidates. “Hoboken’s got me stressed, I’m going to motor west/ Out Succasunna way, Netcong or Rockaway,” he sings in the upbeat ditty, later adding, “Hohokus takes the cake—well, that’d be Cheesequake!”
Forbert was born in Mississippi, which is no slouch in the name department (Picayune, Yazoo, Yockanookany, et al). For most of these monikers, in almost any state, we have Native Americans to thank. If Forbert hadn’t limited himself to North Jersey, he could have loaded up on the likes of Mizpah, Sooy Place, Manahawkin, Elmer, Barnegat, and Gum Tree Corner. Oh, well. Maybe he can work those into an encore when he plays the Stanhope House (45 Main Street, Stanhope, 973-347-0458) on December 6.