WCSX Classic Cuts
Glenn Frey: “You Belong to the City”
The Hook: Inspired by the script of the first episode of Season Two of Miami Vice.
Album: Miami Vice (TV soundtrack album)
Year: 1985
Writers: Glenn Frey and Jack Tempchin
Stats: Peaked at number-two on the Billboard Hot 100 and went to number-one on its Top Rock Tracks chart.
Background: “You Belong to the City” was by far the late Glenn Frey’s most successful solo single. He wrote it with his frequent collaborator Jack Tempchin and it peaked at number-two on the Billboard Hot 100 and number-one on the Top Rock Tracks chart. Frey spoke to us about what inspired both its title and its sound.
Glenn Frey on how he and collaborator Jack Tempchin wrote his biggest solo hit, “You Belong to the City.” OC:…sounding song. :33
“Written for the second season premiere episode of Miami Vice. Had the script before we wrote the song. It’s the story of Phillip Michael Thomas’s character Tubbs, who in the beginning of Miami Vice came down from New York to Miami ’cause some bad mojo had gone down in New York. And in this opening episode, the boys were being plucked out of the Miami environment and were going to New York City. With that story in mind, the title ‘You Belong to the City’ came to me and Jack and I attempted to write a very urban sounding song.”
