I’ll be the first to admit, I was never a Pretenders fan during their peak in the 1970s/80s, but man do I respect them now in hindsight. I lived during their heyday and knew only the radio singles and was not buying in simply due to overexposure. But, now that I’ve slowed my roll on idealism in music, I can appreciate them so much more now and forgive the hits that were seemingly inescapable back in the day.
But in this era, where I get fewer tips from friends and more from the ever-present algorithms online, I have been peripherally exposed to the deeper cuts of the Pretenders.
What a band. Man, I missed out. One of the original members of the band, Chrissie Hynde is from Akron, Ohio.
The song that drew me in to them was “The Wait”, a fantastic song with cutting guitars, rapid fire beat and vocals. But that’s not why I’m here writing about the Pretenders on a St. Louis website.
Hynde wrote a song called “My City Was Gone”, the 1982 B-side to “Back On The Chain Gang” which everyone has heard a million times.
I interpret it as a return to her hometown of Akron, Ohio after living in England and elsewhere and feeling the changes post industrial cities experienced in the late 70s/early 80s. She had something either sentimental or scathing to say. Either way, the song is memorable and one I return to often when I’m rolling around St. Louis.
Here are the lyrics (source):
I went back to Ohio
But my city was gone
There was no train station
There was no downtown
South Howard had disappeared
All my favorite places
My city had been pulled down
Reduced to parking spaces
A, o, way to go Ohio
Well 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
Slowly swirled past
Like the wind through the trees
A, o, oh way to 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Had been replaced by shopping malls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, a, o, oh way to go Ohio
The first verse got me and is how I feel about St. Louis sometimes.
As I’m writing about gentrification, preservation, demolition and development, I keep thinking about change. Everything changes, but it’s not always displacement and uptight yuppies calling the shots and tearing down the old for new quick profits, it’s life, the times, the element and modernism.
You can count on the continuity of change and the lust for new things that will continue to transform places.
The thriving new shopping malls Hynde wrote about in the late 70s/early 80s now seem short lived.
What was shining and new then seems like a dying fad now.
Tying it back to St. Louis, this song makes me think of the places I loved when I moved here in the 1990s that seemed so raw, dirty and scary/unfamiliar to me back then. All of which were in the South City Neighborhoods and Downtown. I knew nothing of North City back then, but I’m sure the stories are the same.
Nobody gentrified these places and people out, that is preposterous. The folks who made old south city hoosier places so unique and at times insufferable died or moved to St. Charles or St. Louis County, etc. A true South City bar where conversations can be heard from the KSHE perspective are harder and harder to find. Gentrification? Nah, just change. Everything is a continuum of change.
Further, memories tend to be self serving. We remember strange personalized/rationalized pieces that, depending on your outlook, are typically romanticize for fondness or a good story we like to tell. Alternatively, memories can be held as touchstones of the negatives or wrongs in our short lives…you were bigger than X place, and you had to justify moving.
I can’t tell if Hynde is retelling a fond memory or a see I told ya so memory…maybe both, which makes a good songwriter.
St. Louis has changed so much in the 25 years I’ve lived here. Much to the worse in certain neighborhoods. I am doing neighborhood revisits ten years after I originally photographed and discussed all 79 St. Louis neighborhoods from 2009-2011. But, it’s hard. So much is gone. Buildings have disappeared or are crumbling before my eyes. Streets, corners and larger and larger swaths are unrecognizable due to overwhelming abandonment, neglect, vacancy and lack of basic care.
Further, blocks of buildings are coming down for visitor parking spaces near a new stadium for a fan base terrified to walk a block or two in a city. Just like Hynde said…
Some places are on the verge of unlivable and the 2020 Census data will pinpoint their locations with undeniable accuracy.
Trust me, I’m not here to bash people who live in these neighborhoods now or ten years ago or whenever. All I’m saying is, the city is disappearing at an alarming rate in so many places.
This song pops up when I’m riding around. It’s part of me now.
There is something that won’t let me into Hynde’s final take, though. I sense a middle finger over notstalgia. The need to justify a move to bigger and better things in England (including the Sex Pistols and Ray Davies). But to come back and say “way to go Ohio” seems elitist. You left, and so did thousands of others in that time span. That was the problem more than anything, outward migration from post-industrial cities.
I still like STL for the long run. But, if I ever choose to leave, I will never EVER diss St. Louis with a fuck you, I’m outta here. It would be with the most loving memories and lingering frustrations.
St. Louis will be unrecognizable to someone who grew up here in the 1950s during our peak. It will also be unrecognizable in ten years.
For now, I’ll keep listening to old rock music (and new) and trying to accept change and technology and new materials and new craftsmanship and mourn the loss of the old stuff with a mind toward positivity and intelligent and equitable futures for all living here now and to come.
Here’s a 1983 performance of the Pretenders doing “My City Was Gone”
