Noccalula Falls: An Interpretation

Chief Little Turkey’s daughter didn’t want to marry the man he had picked out for her which would have benefited the tribe’s diplomacy in the local area surrounding the falls. She instead wanted to marry the exiled boy with whom she had fallen in love and to who she had pledged herself. Little Turkey wouldn’t hear of it, so on the night of the political wedding, she slipped away and gave her soul to the water and rocks at the bottom of the falls.

This legend is probably not true, and whatever stories come from Gadsden, Alabama about the falls are surely muddied by cinematic spin and Southern yarn. My friend Joe Grow always told me before he passed at the great age of 94, “Don’t let the truth ruin a good story”.

As a songwriter, I am surprised by the things that, when I look for a moment longer, become polished glass, reflecting my own visage and soul. The legend of Noccalula Falls is such a story. The statue above the falls shows a stereotypical 1960s Cherokee Princess archetype, but she is throwing herself into the gorge. Her true love waited and hoped for her in exile, but she never showed up.

I am the constant reflection of those people and places around me that reflect the values deep within my soul. I cannot love something or someone until they look like a part of me that I love. So it is with hate. I can only hate the things in this world that reflect the parts of me I hate.

The rebellion inside me seeks to buck against anything trying to control and contort me into the parts of me I despise. Like all others, I am in this constant battle to become myself, to be true to my callings, and to learn to love the unloveable parts of this existence. The temptation to lean into hatred and self righteousness is dense with gravitas. And like Noccalula, things can seem so hopeless that the only other option is destruction. Been there done that. It wasn’t the answer.

There are people, including myself, waiting for me in the future to show up for them. Whatever story I tell myself now determines whether or not I arrive on time. I have to tell myself a good story. No matter what uncontrollable events happen to me or around me, I can’t let the “truth” ruin my good story.

As i wrote Noccalula Falls, I kept thinking about what her true love must have felt waiting for her to come meet him, how his hope slowly diminished as his fear increased. I thought about how long it must have taken for him to accept the horrible news he inevitably received through the grape vine of community. And how at some point he must have accepted rather than succumb to the weight of fate.

This song is not about despair. It is about hope. Which are two sides of the same coin if you ask me on my worst days. Just like all the songs on Elseworthy, it is about the journey in us all to look inside ourselves and to make something beautiful in the ugly we find there.