Music City stories...

The dried trees got deep and dense, crackled where the water flowed. I thought the river would continue as a trickle, but it widened, grew faster, skipped round displaced bricks and large tin cans, made noises that grew louder. Made me realise that though I was in an unfamiliar place this could only be Nashville. Even the river was singing.
You see this city sucked in music. Like LA with actors, every waiter in Nashville was a musician. The city brought people here just to throw them all back out again, spilling failed songs from their fingertips. I think the trees caught these songs sometimes – snagged notes on their branches as they tried to get blown out of here, singing their way on the breeze to some bigger town with a bit more going on. They were too much part of Nashville though – the most recent layer of its history. The branches kept them still – humming softly like a wish tied there, always wondering if it would be fulfilled as I penetrated further through the city’s layers. I heard these notes tingling as I moved down the river – tremor as I passed in case I reached out and grabbed them, took them with me to its past or future. I trailed a stream of music through the water like a sodden peacock’s tail.