According to a December 2014 article in the Florida Times-Union titled Video, song promoting Jacksonville draws negative reviews, it wasn’t put together by the city, the local chamber of commerce, or even a group of local businesses, but some amateurs who wanted to share their civic pride. The ringleader behind the effort is Laurence Walden, whom they describe as “a veteran entertainment professional who once was a producer and director of theme park shows at Disneyland”:
He’s lived in Jacksonville since 1999 and said he thought the city needed a theme song.
Walden said Thursday that he used Broadway show tunes as an inspiration for the music for the song. He used his own experience in Jacksonville as the inspiration for the lyrics which tout everything from the Jaguars to the Beaches to the arts and other cultural scenes and beyond.
“I wrote it about nine years ago,” Walden said. “It’s a theme song, not a pop song. … It appeals to a diverse audience.”
People who are not Walden have described said appeal with comments like “That is more than cringeworthy. It’s tragic,” and “I’m sure there was good intention, but that was bad.”
A far better song about Jacksonville is Duval Ditty (a nickname for Jacksonville, which is in Duval County), released 4 years earlier in 2010. It wins on every front, from the tune to vocalists who can keep time, to better dancing, to not showing generic chain businesses you can find outside Jacksonville, such as chain hotels and grocery stores, which were featured in the Jacksonville, Florida video. It’s even more impressive when you find out that it was made by students at Jacksonville’s Paxon High School.
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