Neil Young "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere" (1969)
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
When my family first visited Maryville, Tennessee in the summer of 1966 I fell in love with the place. We had been living in Northern Indiana near Chicago at the time and the experience of East Tennessee was something completely different for me. Now my father was being offered a work transfer and we were scouting the area to see how we liked it. A decision was quickly made and by end of summer we were in our new home.
Considered the "Gateway to the Smoky Mountains", Maryville was a stopover for many vacationers and there was much to do in the area. The town itself was small--almost like a throwback to the previous decade--but it had a charm for those new to the area. I had made some friends quickly and looked forward to going to a new school. I would be entering high school that fall.
Once the novelty of the area had worn off and school had started it was pretty much back to business as usual for my life. Old me in new environs. School wasn't horrible, but it was still kind of a drag for me. My friends from summer lived across town from where I now lived. They went to the same school as I did but that's usually the only time I saw any of them.
Don't get me wrong, I still liked where I lived. But I was in high school--restless and in a state of ambiguity about where I was going in life. I was never totally bored but sometimes life in the small town seemed boring. There wasn't that much to do. It was like Nowheresville.
After high school I attended the university in nearby Knoxville while still living at my parents' house. In evenings and on the weekends my friends and I would hang out, often going to the mountains. We were somewhere, but it often seemed like nowhere. The restlessness for something more ate at our young souls. I looked toward the world away from Maryville. Someplace, anyplace far from nowhere.
Then I left. My parents were still there so I visited frequently. I gained a greater appreciation for Maryville and though I'd only started living there when I was in high school this was the place that I thought of as my home town. I became kind of proud of that place and still am.
Now Maryville, Tennessee is a much bigger town with a lot more to do. More shopping, more restaurants and night spots--more of everything that the town didn't have when I was living there. I no longer think of Maryville as Nowhere. Now I think of it as the home that for now I am away from.
Did you feel like you lived in Nowhere when you were younger? Has the passing of years changed your attitude about the places you lived when you were younger? Does it sadden you to see modernization come to a small town?
