Does Toledo qualify as south Detroit?

"South Detroit" is in Canada. This is not news.

South Detroit is Windsor.

Fixed ^

Draw a parallel that divides Detroit in half.

Are you south of said line?

If yes, you're in south Detroit. TFA's author is a farking moron, "direction + name" does not necessarily have to refer to an independent political entity with exactly that name. There's no state called Southern California, either, but plenty of people are still from there.

VictoryCabal: I cringe a little when they play it at any Detroit sports event. People in the stands shout out the "Born and raised..." line at the top of their lungs as a point of pride. Meanwhile, I'm thinking to myself "All of you people realized this song is about someone LEAVING Detroit, right? Someone so anxious to leave that he's willing to go absolutely anywhere else? I'm not the only one who gets that, right?"

It's the same people that sing along to "Born in the U.S.A" on top of their lungs not realizing that the theme of the song is not quite as nationalistic as they want it to be.

So what?

So LET'S PARTY!



/Better song by far.

Jim_Callahan: Draw a parallel that divides Detroit in half.

Are you south of said line?

If yes, you're in south Detroit. TFA's author is a farking moron, "direction + name" does not necessarily have to refer to an independent political entity with exactly that name. There's no state called Southern California, either, but plenty of people are still from there.

Difference being that Southern California is accepted generic nomenclature for a specific part of the state. There is no "North" or "South" Detroit in local parlance. Just West, East, North End, and Southwest. The closest to South Detroit would be Downriver, but no one calls it that.

darcsun: South Detroit is Windsor.

Also this.

Jim_Callahan: Draw a parallel that divides Detroit in half.

Are you south of said line?

If yes, you're in south Detroit. TFA's author is a farking moron, "direction + name" does not necessarily have to refer to an independent political entity with exactly that name. There's no state called Southern California, either, but plenty of people are still from there.

I live in Cleveland, and the concept of "North Cleveland" is laughable here. We call it "Lake Erie". Same thing with Detroit. There is no south side, unless you count Windsor.

Sliding Carp: PainInTheASP: South Detroit is just another name for Hell.

I don't think you know what you're talking aboot, eh?

Windsor ain't no prize, son.

bow: I was born and raised south of Detroit.

"Born and raised south of Detroit" works.

Well, you can't get any more pathetic hillbilly than Monroe County.

Guntram Shatterhand: bow: I was born and raised south of Detroit.

"Born and raised south of Detroit" works.

Well, you can't get any more pathetic hillbilly than Monroe County.

My cousin was murdered there last year. Farking dump.

EponymousCowHerd: Jim_Callahan: Draw a parallel that divides Detroit in half.

Are you south of said line?

If yes, you're in south Detroit. TFA's author is a farking moron, "direction + name" does not necessarily have to refer to an independent political entity with exactly that name. There's no state called Southern California, either, but plenty of people are still from there.

I live in Cleveland, and the concept of "North Cleveland" is laughable here. We call it "Lake Erie". Same thing with Detroit. There is no south side, unless you count Windsor.

If you don't live in Detroit than South Detroit makes perfect sense. I have been once but would never have known there is no South Detroit or any other names for parts of Detroit. But if I was on the North, East, West, or South side of Detroit I would assume that is where I am. So not being from Detroit one would assume by looking at one of them map like thingies that the South part was South Detroit.

PainInTheASP: South Detroit is just another name for Hell.

Actually, Hell is about an hour west of Detroit according to Google. (new window).

I guess if you didn't live nearby you don't give "South Detroit" a second thought. But I am amazed on how much that grates on my nerves. They should have gone with East Detroit. I don't think it is too different and it has the added advantage of being a real place. (Well, not anymore. Now it is Eastpointe.)

Guess what, subby?

'The Fonz' and 'Shotz Brewery' never existed either.

Pastor of Muppets: The phrasing never bothered me. I was born and raised in North Fort Worth. There is no North Fort Worth on the map, but don't tell anyone that lives there. If you live here and you are asked where you live, you don't say Fort Worth, you say North Fort Worth.

/just sayin'

Sounds like the people who live in Anacostia saying they live in "South Capitol Hill".

Holy cow! Now that I think of it, Journey lyrics are rife with wierd crap. For your consideration:

When the Lights Go Down in the City- I knew that lights were capable of random acts of imitation, such as pretending to be a UFO, but who knew they were capable of oral sex? Must be those "streetlight people", no?

Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin- Steve Perry really loves sodium. He spends the entire last minute of the song singing about it.

Wheel in the Sky- Must be nice to be rich enough to send home a letter made of silver, not of clay. Us everyday Mesopotamians still have to use stone tablets.

what_now: Detroit doesn't have a South?

Really?






Well, ain't this place a geographical oddity.

I suppose he could have been referring to the Lincoln Park area. I don't know enough about the Detroit area to know if that's a particularly bad area (relative to the rest of Detroit).

Kaiser Chieftess: South Detroit is Windsor. T-shirts don't lie.

SouthDetroitTshirts (new window)

...And ordered.

NuttierThanEver: My favorite bit about leaving Detroit is how the vid for Seven Nation Army was played overseas that nobody understood what Jack White was doing when he pointed at the location of Detroit on his hand and was singing about leaving this soap opera forevermore.

IIRC, Jack has called Detroit "a piece of sh*t" once or twice in interviews, so whoever thought that the song was in praise of Detroit totally missed the point.

I've only been to Detroit once, but it was quite the experience. Stayed at a cheap hotel on E. Jefferson because I was a cheap college student. The hotel had a significant number of security cameras and was surrounded by a barbed wire fence that closed at night. Most of the area was full of abandoned houses and warehouses. One morning, a friend and I decided to venture down the street. It was about 11 AM on a Saturday... After walking for a while, a homeless guy walks up to us and politely tells us: "You guys better turn your asses around. You'll be shot walkin' around here looking like that." And by "that", we assumed he meant "suburban, white kids". This was followed by a couple racial remarks from passing cars. It is still the only time I have ever been called a "honkey". We decided we had ventured far enough (after we stopped laughing about being called honkeys). We didn't get shot, but it was an interesting experience to say the least.

/Yeah, I know. CSB

OtherLittleGuy: Not as bad as a beat on the East Side of Chicago.

Chicago has an East Side (new window). It happens to also be far south, but the Indiana border is at 4000 East.

From TFA
Steve Perry: "The syntax just sounded right. I fell in love with the line. It's only been in the last few years that I've learned that there is no South Detroit. But it doesn't matter."

Bears repeating: "... it doesn't matter."

/thread

Kim Wilde's "Kids In America" has a line that mentions "East California". But there are no articles about that.

Jim_Callahan: Draw a parallel that divides Detroit in half.

Are you south of said line?

If yes, you're in south Detroit. TFA's author is a farking moron, "direction + name" does not necessarily have to refer to an independent political entity with exactly that name. There's no state called Southern California, either, but plenty of people are still from there.

You're not from here, are you? It's really not as simple as all that. I guess one could say if you're south of 8 Mile, then it's south Detroit. But there's a lot more geographic dynamics to it than that. Anyways, when I first heard this song oh about 30 freakin' years ago I wondered why he mentioned a town that doesn't exist. Just chalked it up to poetic license.

FriarReb98:
\*For those that don't know the whole story... the point of the line is basically calling William & Mary a safety school after his girlfriend got arrested in the raid that inspired the song.

Except that it was nothing to do with The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. The repeated references to "Annandale" are referring to Bard College in Annandale-On-Hudson, NY, where both Donald Fagen and Walter Becker went to college. The song is about an incident in 1969 (see p. 4) where Bard College staff helped the Annandale police arrest a bunch of students (including Becker and Fagen) for marijuana possession, although the charges were later dropped. Fagen was so upset about the incident that he left the school, vowing never to go back -- hence the song.

The references to William and Mary refer to the alleged fact that Bard was sometimes called "the William and Mary of the North" (or "-of the Hudson"), although it's hard to find any confirmation of that fact beyond people talking about the song itself.