Music Geek-Out #3

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[This is part of the series where I blog about my setlist from philoSOPHIA 2012.]

Second is The Pretenders’ “My City Was Gone,” which I only recently learned is not titled “Back to Ohio”:

The Prestenders’ lead singer, Chrissy Hynde, is from Akron (known for making tires). She moved to the UK and was a fixture of the early punk scene in London. But she, like me, occasionally goes back to Ohio. Oxford/Miami is in Butler County; Oxford is in the northwest corner of Butler County, I grew up in the southeast corner (West Chester). This song pretty much sums up what has happened in/to Butler County since I graduated Miami in 2000: as Hynde sings, “the farms of Ohio have been replaced by shopping malls.” (Or, for Oxford, “Stewart Elementary has been replaced by a shopping mall.”) So, I chose this song not only because of Hynde’s connection to Ohio, and the fact that the song is about Ohio, but also because it pretty accurately reflects the recent history of Oxford and the surrounding area.