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It’s appropriate that a song singing the praises of Detroit should come directly from the suburbs. After all, who gave the suburbs more than Detroit? John Nixon hopes to give a little something back.

Detroit’s People Mover is ready to spring to life to accommodate sports-hungry visitors to The ‘D’

Can a song save Detroit?

Officials at the Detroit Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau hope one can at least bring tourists and businesses to town, especially for the July 12 All Star game and Super Bowl XL in February. So they’ve released a Detroit tribute called “What It’s Like in The ‘D.’ ”

The tune, officially released last month to coincide with the Motor City Music Conference, is being used to advertise Detroit in western Michigan and parts of Ohio. The bureau plans to spend more than $244,000 in print and radio ads through mid-November selling the city.

"It was no architect designed this view"

“It’s closer than you think,” sings Greg Brown of Detroit, and “there’s always something more.”

“The song is to teach you to be proud of the city you’re in,” said Brown, an airbrush artist at Creative Studios Airbrush Co. in Oak Park. “It’s a Detroit anthem.”

John Nixon of Grosse Pointe wrote the track, which he said has elements of classic rock, funk, gospel, electronic music and echoes of Detroit’s Motown era.

Nixon, 39, found Brown through a friend in music circles. Brown isn’t known as a performer, but has sung jingles and commercial music before.

“It’s not a war zone. It’s not a place without culture,” Nixon said.

Nixon, who grew up in Warren, has been composing advertising music for 15 years. He runs Coda music in Birmingham, where he put together the song at Ron Rose Studios. He’s lived in the Detroit area all his life, leaving briefly to attend the Berklee College of Music in Boston.

His is not the first song to be written about Detroit, but is one of the most positive.

“Amityville” by Eminem crowns the city as “the murder capital.” “Motor City is Burning,” sung by John Lee Hooker, is about the 1967 Detroit riot.

“What It’s Like in the ‘D’ ” … “may not be the” city’s “savior, but it is the start” of a larger renaissance, Nixon said.

The bureau last released a Detroit song in 1998 called “It’s a Great Time in Detroit,” for a similar ad campaign.

Nixon says his song is along the lines of Sammy Davis Jr.’s “Hello Detroit,” which brags on the city.

“You got to check it out,” he said. “Give it a fair shot and you’ll have a better understanding of what it’s like.”

It’s disappointing that Superchunk’s classic "Detroit Has a Skyline" was omitted from the list of songs extolling the city’s virtues. Personally, I don’t think Detroit needs a jingle to reinvent itself, the statistics speak loudly enough. What other city can brag that it is no longer #1 in crime because the city’s population fell under 1 million?

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 12th, 2005 at 11:45 am and is filed under Michigan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.