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The Ground Beneath Her Feet by Sarah Bruner
"Your songs are your planets. Live on them but make no home there. What you write about you lose. What you sing, leaves you on the wings of song.Sing against death. Command the wildness of the city.
Freedom to reject is the only freedom. Freedom to uphold is dangerous.
Life is elsewhere. Cross frontiers. Fly away."
- Salman Rushdie, The Ground Beneath Her Feet
Life is elsewhere. That's what I said when I left Detroit, my hometown, for the last time in 1992. I went on tour with the Grateful Dead that summer, as I had many summers before. Somehow my best friend and I ended up in Missoula, Montana. We lived there for a year before coming to Hawaii. I've crossed a few frontiers.
Although most of my family lives there, I haven't returned to Detroit very often since then. In a few days I will making my first journey to my hometown in over four years.
No matter where life takes you, no matter how many frontiers you cross or how far you fly away, where you are from will always be a part of who you are. Detroit will always be a big part of who I am. And music has always been a big part of Detroit.
So I am excited about going back. It will be great to reunite with my long lost family and to hang out with friends I haven't seen in nearly eight years. It'll be good to get back on Detroit freeways, where people really know how to drive. Most of all, I'll be happy to get back into the groove of Motown again, to delve back into my musical roots.
Cars and music were a way of life. I used to drive a two-door Eldorado, lovingly nicknamed "The Pimpmobile". I would kick the seats way back, tune into Smokey Robinson or the Jackson Five on one of the many Motown radio stations, and cruise down the wide-laned freeways. You gotta love old Motown. It is the forefather of our most funky and soulful jams, and it's just plain fun to listen to. Some of my all-time favorite songs will always be old Motown songs.
I grew up on old blues too. When I was a kid, many of my friends wanted to be doctors, teachers, and firefighters. My biggest aspiration was to be a back-up singer for Aretha Franklin. I had all her records, and I would spend hours learning the harmony parts, practicing for my imaginary debut with the Queen of Soul.
As I write this, I'm playing my favorite Nina Simone CD on my cd-rom drive, realizing that even though my new computer speakers really suck, Nina still sounds as sweet and sultry as ever. It's comforting. Her voice reminds me of the west side of the city, the run-down buildings, the tall homes with big front porches, the grey of the late autumn sky, the busy intersections. It reminds me of the Joe Louis Fist sculpture right downtown.
It's important to remember the past, even if I feel more at home in Hawaii than I ever felt in Michigan. It will be good to go back. And not only to check out the soul of the music of the Motor City, but also to remind myself of where I've been and how far I've come. I hope to come back reaffirmed that I've made some good choices in my life. And maybe I'll be able to dig up my old Aretha Franklin vinyls.
Sarah Bruner is a writer, researcher, and webmaster living in Honolulu, Hawaii.
She also manages the Chicks With Tape Decks mailing list.
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