Nashville’s Data Center Fight Strikes a Chord

During Tuesday’s council meeting, local singer-songwriter Jack Settle stepped up to the mic to share his thoughts on data centers:

“I'm fortunate to get to play, on occasion, at the Bluebird Cafe, and every time I play there, I meet people from at least two other countries and probably ten other states. Those people don't come here to see our data centers; they come here for our music, for our talent, and for Tennessee's incredibly beautiful scenery, so let's continue to make Nashville a welcoming place to visitors but, most importantly, a safe, comfortable home for its residents.”

Settle's message reflects the relationship that has long defined Nashville. Music City thrives on the partnership between the people who call it home and the visitors drawn by its music, talent, and scenery. That relationship brings as much vibrancy, opportunity, and culture as it does traffic, growing pains, and the occasional dose of Broadway debauchery.

Despite recurring efforts to pit the locals against billionaires and bachelorettes, Nashville's identity has always depended on the coexistence of both. The people make up the colorful tapestry of the city; tourism greases the wheels.

In the same breath, Settle—perhaps unintentionally—highlighted the rare unity among council members working to address data centers, despite the fractured factions simmering just beneath the surface.

He thanked Councilmembers Rollin Horton, Ginny Welsch, and Courtney Johnston in the same sentence: a member at odds with a local community over accusations of choosing developers over neighborhoods, a member who has consistently pushed budget proposals to defund the police, and a member often cast as the council’s token conservative, swimming upstream in a predominantly progressive body. A feat, perhaps, that only a controversy as contentious as placing a data center near a zoo could have accomplished—at least on paper.

Tech takeover on the brain

It only took a quick glance at Settle’s social media to see that the singer-songwriter embodies Nashville’s quintessential bootstraps-to-billboards music scene. Currently taking a break from social media, the crooner had been contemplating the implications of a technological takeover long before a data center was ever proposed next to the Nashville Zoo.

“Clanker is like a derogatory term for robots,” Settle explained to an audience before playing a little ditty he wrote called “The Clanker Song.”

It's 2065, and I'm still alive,
But I miss my younger days.
Back when a person was all organic—
Flesh and bone, with a face.

Intelligence was real,
Everyone could feel emotions like joy and pain.
I played my guitar, and I drove my own car,
With the neurons in my brain.

I still have my wits,
But many others have thrown all theirs away.
Just when I thought things couldn't get worse,
I found out my son is...

In love with a robot,
He thinks she's real hot.
My son is dating a machine.
He turns her on with the push of a button,
He's making out with a screen.

My son's in love with a clanker,
My worst nightmare has happened.
He's falling like an anchor,
For his electronic girlfriend.

Oh, the rage!
Oh, the anger!
My son's in love with a clanker.

Multiple poems were recited during this week’s council meeting, a testament to the passion and frustration fueling opposition to DC Blox and its proposed data center. The growing movement has become so uniquely Nashville that perhaps the next protest will be on the Grassmere lawn, six-strings in tow.