It Has a Skyline
After a few years in Florida, my mom moved back to the west side of Cleveland in the mid-2000′s. I’m glad she’s closer to me, of course, but I’m also grateful to have an excuse to visit my home town every now and then, to see how things have changed. Like this past weekend, when I went back for Thanksgiving, visiting the old stomping grounds and stirring up a familiar cross between warm nostalgia and sharp vertigo…
I’ve been surprised, over the last couple years, by how many songs I’ve written about where I come from. There’s “From Cleveland to Eternity” from my last CD, and for the Record Club there’s “Lisa Pruett Will Have Her Revenge on Coventry” and one I’m either going to call call “Hi in the Middle” or (gulp) “Another Song About my Home Town.” There’s also an unfinished number called “The Shape of Ohio,” and I’m contemplating something about an area songwriter (which will probably not be recognizable as such by the time it’s done). I think anyone who moves away from their home state ends up wondering what might have been if they’d stayed. But in the case of Ohio, and Cleveland in particular, there’s an especially stark contrast between what it seemed to be when I was growing up, and what it’s become to me in the last decade or so.
When I was younger, I actively hated Cleveland. First as a kid absorbing mistake-on-the-lake jokes, then later as a musician, working my way into a scene that felt supportive, yet somehow stifling. I remember in particular having a conversation with the manager of the Babylon A-Go-Go, a club in the Ohio City neighborhood that was closing down. I’ll never forget him exclaiming that “if you’re the best band in Cleveland, that’s all you get. You get to be the best band in Cleveland, PERIOD.”
But I don’t want to give the impression that Rotary Ten was deep into the Cleveland music scene or anything. Truth is, we all grew up in the sleepy suburb of Fairview Park, and only started venturing into town for gigs once we were seniors in high school. To me, Cleveland was just a dark, gritty landscape dotted with the occasional club. It was as unimaginable a place to live as any big city, and my feelings didn’t really change through college, or during time spent living in Ithaca or Raleigh. It was only when I settled in another hulking Great Lake town (Chicago) that I started to pick out similarities, to slowly begin to recognize Cleveland as a place I could have ended up eventually.
But happily? This is the question I can’t help pondering whenever I go back and drive those streets. I spent so much time generically hating on Cleveland in my younger days that I never gave it much of a chance. Now, whenever I see Facebook posts from high school friends who stayed there, they all seem to enjoy it immensely. And during visits over the years, they (along with my Collinwood friends Mike and Danielle) have introduced me to cool bars and restaurants, to the Beachland Ballroom and the Happy Dog — sturdy music venues whose owners, I’d imagine, are proud to host Cleveland bands every night, regardless of whether or not they they “break out” or whatever. And did I mention the West Side Market? And my beloved Great Lakes Brewing Company? There’s no doubt that Cleveland is, in reality, a happening town.
But oh my, it can be awfully quiet. Still, in the streets between the hubs of nightlife, and especially on the west side. And even the most positive booster would admit that Cleveland has its ugly parts. My friend John, who lived in Ohio City for a few years, once claimed Cleveland as “the ugliest city I’ve ever loved.” I think this ability to embrace both the immediately charming and the endearingly homely aspects of your surroundings is a uniquely Cleveland trait. It’s certainly a piece of That Whole Cleveland Thing I carry around with me to this day And that apparently won’t let me not write songs about it.
