If you’ve been in MetLife Stadium and heard the screams as Bruce Springsteen sings “Jersey Girl” or “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” you know what Jersey pride sounds like. He (and “Jersey Girl” writer Tom Waits) aren’t the only Jersey residents to pay tribute to the Garden State in song.
Fountains of Wayne (named after a now defunct outdoor shop in NJ) have a song called “Hackensack,” there’s Ella Fitzgerald’s classic “Jersey Bounce” and Bon Jovi’s anthem “Who Says You Can’t Go Home” is a love letter to the state. “Woke Up This Morning” by Alabama 3 isn’t about NJ, but its use as the theme song for The Sopranos has made it a NJ staple. I mean, who didn’t get goosebumps when they heard it played as Meadow drove a Chevy truck on the New Jersey Turnpike in February’s Super Bowl commercial.
NJ has its own colloquial language full of terms people from most other states don’t understand, like jughandle, pork roll, Benny, disco fries, down the Shore, what exit?, twentyregularcash and Wawa. Throw in the sounds of traffic, ocean waves and some dance music and you’ll get a real sense of Jersey’s auditory experience.