The first thing you want to do whenever you go anywhere on Earth, is see if Bourdain went there or not. Bourdain has been to Nashville, and he has identified Bolton’s as the place to get Hot Chicken - which is a Nashville staple. Legend has it that long ago a husband came home to his wife after a night of womanizing and the like. In revenge, the wife fried up some chicken and then coated it in a sauce meant to bring the devil himself to his knees. The devil, insomuch as he existed within the husband, could not be so easily defeated and he ate the meal happily. He was so impressed by this recipe that he started a restaurant with his brothers and birthed a flavor onto Nashville that exists to this day. The devil is a powerful force, I suppose. I have come for this chicken, and for the music. I’m here for those things, but what I’m really here for is my wife, Tiffany. She doesn’t care about Nashville, not any more than I do. She likes to travel though, and she likes to see new places.
We got in late, and went straight to the hotel. The next morning we had our first opportunity to see the city. My idea was to walk to the river. I wanted to see the river first because unchanging landmarks keep me from getting lost and my phone isn’t the type you can rely upon for directions. On the way, we found something of a main drag and decided to inspect it for culture and such. A block in, I watched a young lady spin a wheel which would decide her fate from a drinking perspective. A half dozen other young women cheered her on by way of high intensity screaming. I don’t know what the wheel landed on, but I watched in fascination at the scene before me. It was about 9 am, and these ladies were all business on the getting fucked up front. They call this place Music City, and that’s a fitting name from what I can tell. Music is everywhere. Drunk women are too.
As we walked around town the pattern emerged. Clusters of women varying in age and group size were the apex predators of this environment. A bus rolled by blasting Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back”, but only the part where a 'rap guy’s girlfriend’ is pointed out to Becky. “Oh. My. God. Look-at. Her. Butt” over and over and over and over and over while women aboard the bus danced and screamed.
Each cluster of women contains a minimum of one cowboy hat and boot ensemble. It is most likely a bright pink hat. Often all of the women have this hat, plus matching shirt, shorts or skirts. Frequently a bride-to-be is made obvious with a white cowboy hat or white clothing otherwise. It isn’t always the case that there is a bride though. There are a number of occasions in which these women may find need for a trip to Nashville, I assume. I asked a waiter about it, and he told me that “Yeah, this place is geared toward getting women to come here. We have lots of murals for taking Instagram pictures in front of, and that sort of thing.”
I can’t speak to what it is about being driven around while you drink that is so appealing, but there is an entire industry built around this particular vice. Mostly, they achieve a rolling party on a bus. The seats are largely absent, and the walls are partially removed to allow for a dance floor which can be seen by pedestrians as the bus rolls by. Another variation has a dance floor which is pulled by a farm tractor. The operator of this tractor fascinates me and I watch him closely whenever we happen upon one of these things. I assume that the tractor cannot be driven by just anyone. A special license must be required for the operation of such a vehicle, which is nothing like a normal car, yet here is driven on a normal street. Did this person realize what he would pull with his tractor, when he took this special driving test? It was always a man, which I don’t comment on, I just want to paint the picture for you. He is dressed like a normal person, so jeans and a T-shirt plus a baseball hat. Generally on the younger side, but able to grow a beard. He stares off ahead, more or less unaware of the madness he pulls along behind, expressionless. He might be pulling a dozen drunk women as they dance to classic rock songs, or he might be pulling bales of hay, or livestock. His job is to drive the tractor, and pull what society requires of him to pull. So, that’s what he does.
A crew of about 10 women sit at a moving, street legal bar. Each bar stool contains bicycle pedals which the women pedal furiously while screaming to the chorus of “Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy”. Their faces are red and their eyes watery with the strain of it. Is this joy? I cannot tell. It looks something like anger. God help this titular cowboy, should they come upon him. I wonder out loud whether the bicycle pedal is important to the motion of the vehicle. Tiff points out that you could never rely upon the patrons for something like that, since this thing is actually driven on the street. I dispute this at first, because I cannot wrap my head around it. Sure, they don’t steer it and the brakes are controlled by a sober person, but they must be propelling the vehicle with those pedals, right? Tiff is correct though, and this is confirmed when we see one being driven by a single operator with a modern non-Flinstonian engine. So, the pedals do nothing? Why do they pedal then? Do they know that the pedals are not doing anything? Is it the illusion of control that they seek? Did an earlier version of this contraption lack pedals, and therefore interest from the women come to this place seeking whatever the pedals provide? I will never know.
We make it to Bolton’s and we get the chicken. Since I watched Bourdain sweat through the ‘medium’ I opt for the mild. There is one level below mild called ‘no spice’ and there are two levels above medium that I didn’t even bother learning. It was delicious, and the mild was still plenty spicy. While we waited we noticed a couple ordering the medium version. They didn’t look like they could handle it, and the guy had to explain the situation to them—eventually talking them into mild. I wonder if I looked like I could handle it or not. If I didn’t already know the score, would the guy have talked me out of medium too? Would I have been offended? What would give me away? How long did the chicken guy take developing this sense? Does he walk through life, unconsciously filtering everyone he sees into tiers for how spicy they will want their chicken? Does he also place an illogical importance on this trait? Does he tie it to strength, masculinity, or virility? Do I? No. I am content with mild.
On the walk back to the hotel we cross the Woodland Street Bridge. It is a boring bridge by engineering standards, but a plaque on the downtown side alerts us to a grim history. In 1892 two brothers came upon some trouble. Henry and Ephraim Grizzard were accused of assaulting two women. The women were white, and the brothers were black. They got Henry right away, hanging him near the house of the women. Ephraim was taken to Nashville along with his other brother John who wasn’t even so much as accused of anything. John was released eventually, but on April 30th an all white mob numbering as many as 10,000 strong overwhelmed the police and took Ephraim from his cell. They dragged him through the street to this bridge and hung him from the span. Members of the mob then shot his dead body over 200 times, according to the plaque.
Oh yeah, we’re in the South.
I don’t mean that like “this land is an irredeemable blot on our great nation” or in any other way that might smell like condescension. I do not think that I’m better because I happened to grow up in a place that hasn’t confronted it’s own sins so plainly. The plaque does to me what I assume it was meant to do. It makes me think, and not about chicken.
The next day we go to a combination winery and historical site. This winery used to be a plantation. A plantation is any place which specializes in a cash crop - and here they once sold race horses. Not a crop as I would’ve defined it, but they planted seeds and worked the land for something they could sell I suppose. Remnants of slavery dotted the tour we took. I’m not sure whether slavery is an integral part of a plantation, but that is the first thing that comes to mind when I think of a plantation - not the crops.
Tiff loves old stuff, and especially old houses. She spent the tour rapt and totally engaged in the surroundings. I spent it wondering what part of me is broken that doesn’t allow even a feigning interest in an old house, struggling mightily just to stay awake. My wife is unlike me in her core, and we share hardly any similar interests. At first this seems like a recipe for trouble, but I find it to be essential to my happiness. I imagine an alternative reality where I marry someone just like me and shudder at the horror of it. It is the marital equivalent of giving up on your body or mind and relaxing into comfortable apathy and decline. Growth is hard and uncomfortable. I look back on 18 years of attempted compromise with her and recognize it as good. Besides, our primary interests are aligned anyway: each other and our kids.
After the tour we snag some wine and have a seat in front of a young woman singing and playing guitar. Now I’m the one that’s rapt. She sings beautifully. I watch her play a power cord several frets down on the D and G strings, then transition up smoothly to a picked apart G chord of complexity and speed I can hardly see. I picked up a guitar about 4 years ago and I have learned enough to be fascinated when I watch someone play it. This young woman plays in front of 20 people that came here to drink wine, mostly. She goes unnoticed, save at our table where we clap each time she finishes a song. I feel like a child watching a magic show. Each trick blows my mind, but the adults in the room see through it all and instead talk quietly amongst themselves. Music City has no shortage of singers picking away on a guitar. Even the Taco Bell has live music. There is a concentration of musical talent here that the locals take for granted, I suppose. On our return home I saw a woman play an obscure David Bowie song at the airport terminal in front of less than 5 people - and it was an amazing performance. Live music is woven into this place, and like anything else sewn into our environment it becomes unnoticeable given time. Part of the background.
Later, we walk to Third Man Records so I can pay homage to Jack White. We have to weave around pockets of drunk women to get there, but I’m starting to get used to it and notice the music instead. Every restaurant, every bar, every street corner contains within it at least one guitar, maybe some drums, and a cover song. We see the building where the Grand Old Opry was once held. We’re both confused a bit, unsure just what exactly the Grand Old Opry is—but distantly aware that it is important to some people. For my part, I didn’t know that it was a show and I expected to see a physical venue or stage, a Grand Old one at that. I’m half correct, I guess. Eventually this show outgrew it’s home and become a venue just outside town. We drove there, killing time before a reservation. This is no place for the pure of heart or mind. Here, you find what is essentially a strip mall. Cheap food, cheap everything else too. I don’t know what the cash crop is, but many people are buying it in bulk here outside Nashville, and all across our country alike.
We go to the Country Music Hall of Fame. We see Elvis’s outlandish car, which was painted with real gold and real diamonds, I guess. In my youth I saw this genre as a warring faction in opposition to my own musical tastes. I admit, I still don’t care for it much but I think that’s more about my own interpretation of the culture which surrounds it. Good ol’ boys and the like. That’s not how music works though, is it? It should be removed of context, a true meritocracy. Yet, I struggle with that to this day. Also, steel guitar doesn’t do it for me on any level. I don’t think that can be helped.
One morning, craving donuts, we made our way to an area just removed from downtown. Guided by Yelp to this donut place, we watched our surroundings shift and change as we gained passage into a chunk of wholly gentrified Nashville. The businesses had a different aesthetic to them that explained what I might find inside to my subconscious. White siding. White everything else too. We came upon a mural, for Instagram pictures and so forth. It had a line down the block filled with women eager to stand directly centered in front of butterfly wings made from flower pedals. There would be no illusions that this picture, these women, or this entire chunk of town contained something unique at this moment. Each picture would look basically identical to the previous picture. Each woman would go get a donut or a drink, choosing from among maybe 5 different options for each. They would then wander to one of the 3 or so clothing stores which are chains, and contain a handful of options where they will find one dress or shirt which they and their peers all enjoy.
Tiff tells me that she likes this place, she can’t help it. Later, after the donuts, and after she finds a dress at a store she likes, we walk past the mural and there’s no line so she has me take her picture in front of it. As I frame the picture I don’t see a generic (upper?) middle class white woman posed in front of the same goddamn mural that thousands before have stood in front of. I see my wife of 15 years. She is beautiful. She is smiling, and she is happy. She is unique and she is being genuine. I have known nobody like her in all my life. Someone drives past, I’m sure, and sees the assembly line produced mural loving dopes as I did 20 minutes prior. Do I like this place too? Am I too worried about being different? Am I unable to find joy so easily as standing before a mural with a donut on a nice day because I prioritize being weird? What the fuck is that about, anyway?
On our last day, we walk the main drag one last time. The drunk women have become background. The music has become background. A homeless guy pushes past me at an intersection and moves with purpose across the street. This type of drive looks strange to me, so I stop and watch him for a while. He positions himself just outside the largest and loudest bar. He doesn’t have a sign, or otherwise make any attempts at spare change and the like. Soon he’s bobbing his head, and playing barehanded drums on the sidewalk. The band inside is covering Hotel California. He just wanted to listen in. Of all the songs in all the world, this one might be hardest to hear. A great song to be sure, an all-time great song when it comes down to it. But… I stopped hearing it 20 years ago at least. It may as well be white noise most of the time, having heard it so many times by now that each sound is expected and anticipated long before it reaches my ears. My gaze widens and I see a cluster of people on the street jamming along too. Several people walk past and slow their stride, adding some flavor to their movements. My gaze widens again and I realize the whole fucking street is under this trance, whether they hear the music or not. The guitarist lays into the famous solo and I hear it (actually hear it) for the first time in decades. Wow.
Music City, man.
Wow is right, Dan...definitely your best piece yet - Thanks!