A line from the San Francisco Chronicle's article, "Great architecture,
clean streets, culture�it must be Minneapolis"
(http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/04/28/DDGAECFM3F1.DTL)
"Skyways were even immortalized in a punk ballad by the Replacements, though
native son Prince has yet to weigh in."
In another part of his column the writer, John King, seems to have mistaken
Loring Park for the Sculpture Garden ("The garden and the museum are
separated by a five-lane roadway"), but he's right about Prince being mum
about skyways in song. If the searchable website
http://www.princelyrics.co.uk is to be trusted, the closest I could find is
"Let democracy take U higher/Everybody wants 2 find Graffiti Bridge."
According to the searchable Bob Dylan lyrics website
(http://search.bobdylan.com/lyricsearch), the one Dylan mention of a skyway
in song is "Ballad in Plain D"
"Ah, my friends from the prison, they ask unto me,
How good, how good does it feel to be free?
And I answer them most mysteriously,
Are birds free from the chains of the skyway?"
Is it Minneapolis-specific? Most likely not. The song's from 1964�two years
after our first skyway was built, but three years after Dylan left town, and
24 years after Woody Guthrie's "endless skyway" in "This Land Is Your Land."
There's no searchable Replacements lyrics site (the band eschewed printed
lyrics), but their song "Skyway" is unmistakably Minneapolis:
"You take the skyway, high above the busy little one-way
In my stupid hat and gloves, at night I lie awake ...
Wonderin' if we'll meet out in the street
But you take the skyway ...
Oh, then one day, I saw you walkin' down that little one-way ...
There wasn't a damn thing I could do or say
Up in the skyway"
(full lyrics: http://the-replacements.the-lyrics.com/skyway-306847.html)
Anyone else hear a mpls-issues-worthy city planning critique there?
Chris Steller
Nicollet Island-East Bank
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