Coney Island

Album: Butterfly House (2010)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • The song title refers to Coney Island, a peninsula in southernmost Brooklyn, New York City, USA, with a beach on the Atlantic Ocean. Between the end of the 19th century and World War II, Coney Island's amusement park area was the largest in the United States, attracting several million visitors per year.
  • Frontman James Skelly told BBC's Newsbeat about the song: "It's about a day when we mastered the last album in the US and we just got the train up to Coney Island. There was no one there and I just love stuff like that. We're lucky to see stuff like that, being in a band."
  • Other songs that reference Coney Island in their lyrics include:

    1. The Franz Ferdinand single Eleanor Put Your Boots On, which features lyrics about a girl in New York, and includes the lines, "But if you run you can run to the Coney Island roller coaster / Ride to the highest points / And leap across the filthy water."

    2. David Bowie's Slip Away from his 2002 album Heathen. The song is a homage to New Jersey vaudeville-styled comedian and pianist "Uncle" Floyd Vivino, and it includes the lines, "Sailing over Coney Island / Twinkle twinkle Uncle Floyd / We were dumb but you were fun, boy How I wonder where you are."

    3. They Might Be Giants' New York City is a song about a boy and a girl who fall in love in the Big Apple. In the second verse, various landmarks of New York City are referred to - "Statue of Liberty, Staten Island Ferry, Co-op City, Katz's and Tiffany's, Central Park, Brooklyn Bridge, The Empire State where Dylan lived, Coney Island and Times Square, Rockefeller Center ... wish I was there."

    4. New York punk band The Ramones' track Oh Oh I Love Her So from their 1977 album Leave Home includes the lines: "Then we went down to Coney Island / On the coaster and around again / And no one's gonna ever tear us apart / Cause she's my sweetheart."

    5. The Heavy shot their video for "Sixteen" there.

    6. On Taylor Swift's "Coney Island," she is sitting on a bench on the peninsula, reflecting on a relationship gone wrong.

Comments: 1

  • Barry from Sauquoit, NyHere's some obscure trivia:
    On June 13th 1884, the world's first roller coaster began operation at Coney Island, New York...
    Plus on November 18th, 1962 a doo-wop group named the Excellents entered Billboard's Hot Top 100 chart with a song titled "Coney Island Baby"; eventually it peaked at #51 and spent 9 weeks on the Top 100.
see more comments

Editor's Picks

Ian Gillan of Deep Purple

Ian Gillan of Deep PurpleSongwriter Interviews

Deep Purple frontman Ian Gillan explains the "few red lights" in "Smoke On The Water" and talks about songs from their 2020 album Whoosh!

Intentionally Atrocious

Intentionally AtrociousSong Writing

A selection of songs made to be terrible - some clearly achieved that goal.

Church Lyrics

Church LyricsMusic Quiz

Here is the church, here is the steeple - see if you can identify these lyrics that reference church.

Which Restaurants Are Most Mentioned In Song Lyrics?

Which Restaurants Are Most Mentioned In Song Lyrics?Song Writing

Katy Perry mentions McDonald's, Beyoncé calls out Red Lobster, and Supertramp shouts out Taco Bell - we found the 10 restaurants most often mentioned in songs.

Corey Hart

Corey HartSongwriter Interviews

The Canadian superstar talks about his sudden rise to fame, and tells the stories behind his hits "Sunglasses At Night," "Boy In The Box" and "Never Surrender."

Alan Merrill of The Arrows

Alan Merrill of The ArrowsSongwriter Interviews

In her days with The Runaways, Joan Jett saw The Arrows perform "I Love Rock And Roll," which Alan Merrill co-wrote - that story and much more from this glam rock pioneer.