SoTac Way of Neko Case

I may be taller and have less hair on my feet, but nonetheless, like Frodo Baggins, I am on a quest. Frodo’s quest, you may remember, was one of destruction. He was selected by an old wizard to carry the all powerful ring to the one place it could be destroyed. While certainly less grandiose and absent the orcs and elves, I feel that I have been given a quest. Unlike Frodo’s quest to carry and destroy, my quest is to search and discover. As I mentioned in my initial article, there came a day when I found myself staring up at the street sign just two blocks from my house and wondering, just what is the South Tacoma Way?

To this point in my quest, I must admit that other than transportation and rocks, I have yet to arrive at my destination. In fact, I feel as if I’m just leaving the shire. A recent tour of the six square miles that comprise the neighborhood reminded me of how daunting this quest may be. As we traversed the boroughs of South Tacoma (Edison, Arlington, Manitou, Oakland/Madrona and Mason) I began to realize how the Nalley Valley and other industrial tracts geographically disconnect the residential areas. The longer the tour went, the more I began to wonder if there even is a ‘way’ to South Tacoma. Is there a defining trait, quality or characteristic to this place? Or, conversely, is it a community without a culture, an ethos, a way?

Re-reading one of my favorite quotes gave language to the tension I’ve been feeling. 

“No place is a place until it has had a poet … What Frost did for New Hampshire and Vermont, what Faulkner did for Mississippi and Steinbeck for the Salinas Valley, Wendell Berry is doing for his family corner of Kentucky, and hundreds of other place loving people, gifted or not, are doing for places they were born in, or reared in, or have adopted and made their own.”  (Wallace Stegner) 

I’ve read and reread this quote, but it wasn’t until reading it in the context of my quest that I was able to put my finger on the nature of the struggle to discover the South Tacoma Way. If what Stegner says is true, that no place is a place until it has had a poet, then discovering the way of this place means discovering the poets. Where are the people who give, visual, oral or written expression to the streams of people who inhabit the houses, keep the shops and walk the streets of this community? Where are the creators whose material consists of the cheers, tears and jeers of people in this borough? Where are the artists who look upon this place and are able to gather what is scattered and scatter what has been poorly gathered, since, if Stegner is right, we will not be a place until these poets are discovered? And so I bring you my case for Neko as one of South Tacoma’s poets.

“I want to tell you about my hometown / it’s a dusty old jewel in the South Puget Sound …” So begins the song ‘Thrice American’ by Neko Case, in which she sings what may be the closest thing to an anthem that Tacoma has. “People, they laugh when they hear you’re from my town / They say it’s a sour and used up old place / I defended its honor, shrugged off the put downs / You know that your poor from Tacoma.” Such lyrics certainly resonate with the ethos of a town that has too often been considered an ugly step-sister to the emerald city. As a resident of Tacoma, I am proud to claim this song as ours. But, as further lyrics reveal, as a resident of South Tacoma, I am not only proud, I am inspired.

In the lyrics of Neko Case I hear the poetry of a place. I hear the poetry of a place that has its fair share of ‘the gangs, guns and the crime?’ I hear the poetry of the, “people who built it they loved it like I do/there was hope in the train yard of something inspired.” I hear Case’s lyrics and I can’t help but thinking about the black and white photos of the rail workers who were first drawn to put down roots in the soil of this place. These allusions lead me to wonder, when Neko sings “I found passion for life in Tacoma,” if she isn’t referring more specifically to South Tacoma. Skip a couple of songs down the CD and you’ll hear more such evidence in the song “South Tacoma Way.”

When I first discovered this song, I had great hopes that it was one that I could play at church services, block parties, neighborhood council meetings or Karaoke nights to inspire connection to our community. I was disappointed to discover a song that it is more a lament than an anthem, not exactly tailored toward sing-a-longs. Since then, the song has done more than grow on me, it has inhabited me. Part of what captivates me about the song is the subject. It is a requiem for a friend. As someone whose vocation often forces me to confront the reality of death, I am drawn to songs of grief. But, even more than the subject of the song, what grabs me is how Case uses place as a medium for expressing grief. The song begins in her house, “I put on that sweater you gave me / I woke up in the kitchen a few minutes later / I didn’t know how I’d gotten there.” But as she comes to the conclusion of this lament, she moves beyond the personal to allow the communal to speak. “Oh here on South Tacoma way / we’ve memories for matinees/and the tears come warm and heavy / and the cross streets bear your name/and the cross streets bear your name.” Case expresses what every grieving widow I have known faces. All around are objects and images that bear the memory of their departed loved one.

Lyrics like these make me wonder what might have been if Neko Case had chosen to remain in what she claims as her hometown. “Thrice All-American” and “South Tacoma Way” are rich contributions to the poetry of this place, but in the end, they are just a few pages in the great book of South Tacoma that awaits writing or discovering. If we really want to discover the way of South Tacoma, then we need to find more poets. We need more artists to treat South Tacoma not just as a place to live, but as a muse. We need more, as Stegner said, “place loving people, gifted or not,” who allow the history, architecture, landscape, organizations and people of this place to inspire them to create that which makes this place a place. As this happens, I have a sense that ‘the way’ will become clear. And in case she is reading this, “Neko, its never too late to come home.”