“I’m Leaving Detroit” was written by Charlie Moore, a South Carolina bluegrass singer and songwriter. He recorded it in 1972.
The song speaks for the many Southerners who went north to work in Detroit’s auto plants. Worn out by the city and the factory, the singer announces that he is leaving Detroit to go back home to the South, and the lyric carries the homesick pull of the mountains he left.
The song spoke to a real migration, and it stayed in the bluegrass repertoire.
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