May 20, 1999

Interesting article in Tribune about retiring the song 'Sweet Home Chicago'. The inspiration for the song has nothing to do with Chicago--only that Chicago rhymed with 'Kokomo', which was used in another song, and Johnson was inspired by it. This is an example of how cultural objects can be put into different contexts and exploited ad nauseum (and for financial gain), irrespective of the original idea (in this case mere word play by a talented but uneducated man living in the deep south.) The song is really about 'Chicago' as being some far away shangri-la (to him, California). But just because it has the word 'Chicago' in it, Chicago now uses it as its theme song. It seems very common nowadays that lyrics comprise a repository of cliches to use in advertisements. (Songwriters should intentionally pepper their songs with slogans!)