Is Funky Town really fictional? I always just assumed that she was singing about New York or some other (real) city that had elevated levels of funkiness.
Thank you for making me aware of Ys, I had never heard of that legend and it is exactly the kind of thing that interests me. It really reminded me of stories of Dutch sunken places off the coast, and wondered if there might be a shared source. My memories on the Dutch story are too vague though, so I guess I'll be busy researching the next couple of hours/days.
(I don't mean sunken cities in Zeeland which are documented and not legends, and also do not mean Brittenburg, build in roman times, became visible around 1500 due to storms, was intermittently visible at low tides before being fully lost to the sea.)
I did not find the place I was thinking of but found a much more interesting candidate
Saeftinghe, (an actual place) that was flooded on All Saints day. According to legend the citizens were haughty and vain, a mortal sin. The downfall of the city was blamed on a mermaid who cursed the city after being mistreated. The legend goes the church bells from can still be heard (underwater)
The last part is rooted in truth, a bell tower was one of the few things that remained standing. The bells were removed and placed into a tower in a nearby town. So indeed they can still be heard.
Several years after the flood Dutch soldiers pierced the remaining dykes for strategic reason.
So the dykes, mermaid, bells, the city's sins and of course the submergion match up.
Probably of no significance but still found it interesting: Dahut was also called Ahez (thought to come from alc'whez, key) and a nearby town was called Auwersluis (sluis=sluice). Auwers sounds quite similar.
Xanadu is an alternate transcription of Shangdu, so it's based on a real place, but this spelling has a long tradition of being used only for fictional paradise rather than real places. So IMO it's fine. Kanto really doesn't work, though.
(I don't mean sunken cities in Zeeland which are documented and not legends, and also do not mean Brittenburg, build in roman times, became visible around 1500 due to storms, was intermittently visible at low tides before being fully lost to the sea.)
Saeftinghe, (an actual place) that was flooded on All Saints day. According to legend the citizens were haughty and vain, a mortal sin. The downfall of the city was blamed on a mermaid who cursed the city after being mistreated. The legend goes the church bells from can still be heard (underwater)
The last part is rooted in truth, a bell tower was one of the few things that remained standing. The bells were removed and placed into a tower in a nearby town. So indeed they can still be heard.
Several years after the flood Dutch soldiers pierced the remaining dykes for strategic reason.
So the dykes, mermaid, bells, the city's sins and of course the submergion match up.
Probably of no significance but still found it interesting: Dahut was also called Ahez (thought to come from alc'whez, key) and a nearby town was called Auwersluis (sluis=sluice). Auwers sounds quite similar.
Was fun researching
https://www.jetpunk.com/user-quizzes/2339521/singer-by-tour-name
it's akin to calling "New England" fictional just coz it was mentioned in The Great Gatsby.