“Nashville sucks! It’s just like somebody built a theme park in the middle of a slum.” This pronouncement was made by my personal stylist, creative consultant, and frequent traveling companion, the Rt. Honorable Ms. Delilah McQueen, in what I imagine she imagined was a sotto voce fashion, just steps after we exited a massive three-level bar called Honky Tonk Central, onto Nashville’s storied party street, Lower Broadway. Amazingly, we avoided a thrashing.
In fairness, our nerves at the time were pretty frayed. This was partly self-imposed, brought on by too many late nights and overly-strong medicinal margaritas. Partly, as well, it was due to our ears bleeding and souls being crushed like Coors Light beer cans from a couple of nights of painfully loud 90s country music and countrified, chicken fried classic rock, performed by often-second rate musicians in over-priced tourist trap bars. Too many bellowing tourists who imagine they are Blake Shelton or Miranda Lambert. Too many frat boys and hedge fund managers wearing ten-gallon hats and Tony Lama cowboy boots. Too many redneck attitudes and performative southern hospitality about as deep as a rhinestone standing on edge.
It also didn’t help that we had recently arrived in “Music City U.S.A.” from the civilized and colorful streets and jazz bars of Greenwich Village, as well as the fun and progressive cultural oasis of Austin, Texas.
Added to this was the strange fact that our GPS seemed to have taken on a darkly mischievous personality of its own, insisting on taking us toward our destinations via the most labyrinthine and dicey routes possible. Deserted streets, burned out buildings, and shady looking characters have been the order of the day. I’m amazed it didn’t cackle maniacally every time it told us to take a left turn down some dimly lit alley.
Ms. D’s statement was harsh, intemperate, and unwisely timed. Still, I can’t exactly call it incorrect. More broadly, her indictment of Nashville seems an apt metaphor for the ills of terminal stage capitalism pretty much everywhere you go. From Paris to Vancouver, Savannah to Rome, it’s all poverty and glitz. Thousand-dollar hotel rooms and people sleeping in doorways huddled in piss-soaked sleeping bags. The privileged and the beaten.
Even so, there’s beauty to be found when you care to look. In Nashville, for instance, there is the Bluebird Cafe and The Listening Room—two relaxed, quiet, and reasonably priced venues providing real music for people who care to listen; hallowed places attesting to the redemptive power of music. In New York, there is the Village Vanguard and Smalls Jazz Club. In Austin, there is The Continental Club. In Memphis, walk along Beale Street, and your soul will lift. All of it a testament to the undying, redemptive power of music. Even when the world is falling apart, the sound of a silver saxophone, a soulful human voice, or a perfectly nuanced pedal steel guitar still have the power to turn rhinestones into gems, and heartbreak into poetry.
