“Please Come to Boston” (Dave Loggins)

Today’s classic song of the day is “Please Come to Boston,” written and recorded by singer/songwriter Dave Loggins. The song is about a “rambling boy” (presumably a musician) who wants his girl to come with him on his travels, while she only wants him to come back home to her, where he belongs. The song namechecks Boston (“for the springtime”), Denver (“with the snowfall”), and Los Angeles (“to live forever”), while the singer, as his girl stresses, is just a “man from Tennessee.”

“Please Come to Boston” was perfect little piece of singer/songwriter acoustic guitar-driven folk/rock, released in May of 1974 on the Epic label. It peaked at #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 but went all the way to #1 on Billboard’s Easy Listening chart.

Dave Loggins wrote the song after a 1972 tour with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band that took them to, you guessed it, Boston, Denver, and LA. Loggins himself, as you might suspect, was born and raised in Tennessee. Here’s how he remembers it:

“The story is almost true, except there wasn’t anyone waiting {here} so I made her up. In effect, making the longing for someone stronger. It was a recap to my first trip to each of those cities and out of innocence. That was how I saw each one. The fact of having no one to come home to made the chorus easy to write. Some 40 years later, I still vividly remember that night, and it was as if someone else was writing the song.”

If the singer’s name sounds familiar, that’s because Dave Loggins is the second cousin of the slightly more famous Kenny Loggins. You may also know him for writing “Pieces of April,” a hit for Three Dog Night in 1972 (and a perennial favorite on the Classic Song of the Day blog). “Please Come to Boston” was his only solo hit, although he did have a hit on the country charts with “Nobody Loves Me Like You Do,” a 1984 duet with Anne Murray. Dave Loggins passed away on July 10, 2024, at the age of 76.

And here’s your daily bonus video of the day, Dave Loggins performing “Please Come to Boston” live on The Midnight Special in 1974. RIP, Mr. Loggins.