Iowa Stubborn  

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"Iowa Stubborn" is a song by Meredith Willson from his 1957 musical The Music Man. It is the first sung number in the show and follows the show's unusual spoken opening, "Rock Island". The piece is sung in a schottishe or "soft-shoe" rhythm, and in the lyrics, the reserved and stoic citizens of River City, Iowa seek to persuade an unknown person (who turns out to be Professor Harold Hill) to "give Iowa a try." They sing of their "chip on the shoulder attitude we've never been without that we recall. ... And we're so by God stubborn we can stand touchin' noses for a week at a time, and never see eye to eye."

Nine Iowa cities are named near the end of the song, in the following order:

  1. Hawkeye
  2. Dubuque
  3. Des Moines
  4. Davenport
  5. Marshalltown
  6. Mason City (Willson’s birthplace)
  7. Keokuk
  8. Ames
  9. Clear Lake




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Iowa Stubborn" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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