With the Empress Hotel fire on Yonge Street last week our thoughts have been turned to the city’s built form and how to better preserve the worthy buildings we have now. Many times this week lines from The Pretenders’ “My city was gone” song have come to mind. A fine song from 1982, it’s about just this kind of loss and as close to an urbanist anthem as there’ll ever likely be.
I went back to Ohio
But my city was gone
There was no train station
There was no downtown
Southtown it had disappeared
All my favorite places
My city had been pulled down
Reduced to parking spaces
Ay! Oh! Where did you go, Ohio?
I went back to Ohio
But my family was gone
I stood on the back porch
There was nobody home
I was stunned and amazed
My childhood memories
Saw this world past
Like the wind thorugh the trees
Ay! Oh! Where did you go, Ohio?
I went back to Ohio
But my pretty countryside
Had been paved down the middle
By a government that had no pride
The farms of Ohio
had been replaced by shopping malls
And Muzak filled the air
From Seneca to Cuyahoga Falls
Said Ay! Oh! Where did you go, Ohio?
8 comments
Your’re like the Tea Party people whining “What happened to America” after Obama got elected. Nobody will miss the three restaurants that the building held. Why not move in hundreds of tennants/families to the proposed condo. Isn’t that what the city needs more of? People who don’t need to commute?
I’m like the Tea Party is the comment of the month, Joey. When can you come by the office to collect your prize?
Joey for mayor! I, for one, have had it with reasonable discourse.
Beautiful come-back Shawn Micalleff, and a classic song. I sing it everytime I drive out to my mother’s in Georgetown, which was once separated from the city by miles of rolling orchards and farmland… @Joey, I don’t think the song is about building condos downtown, nor did Shawn Micalleff mention them, though you might be thinking of the fact that the owners of the property have had a fire make it more convenient for them to get their condo plans approved: ‘Cui bono’.
Though speaking of the Tea Party, don’t forget how Rush Limbaugh co-opted (and tainted) the song for his own purposes…
One of my favourite songs; Limbaugh using it on his show was like Manson stealing “Helter Skelter” from the Beatles. At least the Pretenders got plenty of royalties from the fat man.
I will miss that building. I will miss spotting its corner tower as I made my way to Salad King. I will miss the contribution it made to a street and an intersection that used to be iconic thanks to Sam’s. I doubt whatever goes in its place is going to do much to advance the cause of social justice or good urban form, though one can always hope.
The words are actually the slightly more cynical ‘Way to go, Ohio’ and the song is specifically about Akron. The Rush Limbaugh connection is explained here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_City_Was_Gone
Also interesting to note is that Chrissy Hynde had left Ohio in the 1970s for the hyper-urban streets of London, England. Therefore, it’s almost a double-whammy for her coming back to her Ohio town in the early 1980s
I’ve often thought of this song as the new wave version of Joni Mithcell’s “Big Yellow Taxi.”