Over the weekend we watched a quirky little movie called Junebug (it was interesting although I'm not sure how much I'd recommend it). In the movie, a British, go-getting art gallery owner from Chicago, travels to a small town in North Carolina to meet her in-laws. Her presence seems to expose the fragile dynamics of her husband's family and create tension in a marriage which, back in Chicago, seemed to hum along like a finely tuned sports car. Clearly there is something about “being home” — in this case, the po-dunk town where the husband grew up — with all its ghosts and baggage, that disrupts the equilibrium in their relationship, as well as how everybody else relates to them and each other… So that got me thinking. What exactly is home? Where is home? Can you return, or was Thomas Wolfe right when he wrote You Can't Go Home Again? Is home where we live now or where we once lived? Why do I still say “I'm going home to Ohio” when I've now lived in Maryland/Washington, DC longer than anywhere else in my life? Will Maryland ever become “home,” or is it all just silly semantics? If Maryland is home, have I some how forsaken my “roots?”
I know, stuff like this probably makes your head hurt and is better served up neat or on the rocks in some late night conversation with good jukebox music in the background, low lighting and a bar tender who “keeps 'em coming” and always remembers to put a napkin down under the new glass — at least not on a Monday night for godssake! But bear with me, I have no control over how these ideas occur… or even where they're going half the time… but I do have a few interesting observations to make and if you can hold out long enough there might even be a great song at the end of all this…
So here's my first interesting observation: in my music collection alone there are over 175 songs about “home.” Not “house.” Home. OK, that's a lot. Seriously, apart from love and girls (particularly girls named Sally), I'm gonna wager that songs about “home” permeate and maybe even dominate the top thematic categories in music. Even more interesting—unlike film and literature where “home” is often chaotic, dysfunctional, and painful—songs seldom denigrate the notion of “home.” In music, the direction is almost always towards home, not away from it. People are always “going home,” “coming home,” “coming home soon,” running “all the way home,” going “home again,” etc. Home is “where the heart is,” it's “home sweet home,” or even “heavenly.” It's typically safe and a source of comfort. It offers solace and retreat. It helps us know or find out who we are, rather than confuse us further. Don't you think that's an odd perspective coming from a group of people who are hardly ever home? Perhaps that's why, as Lori suggested to me, musicians sing of home so fondly. So much of their time is spent on the road their notion of home is completely idealized. Of course there are exceptions. Sometimes there's a “killer in the home,” or someone's “knocking down our homes.” Sometimes there's “homesickness,” “subterranean homesick blues” or “a better home in the phantom zone.” But for the most part, even if it's just “a sort of homecoming,” “homeward bound” is a good thing. So, over the next five days I'm going to present what some of my favorite songs have to say about the interesting subject of “home.”
Before there was the Eurythmics, Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart were in a band called The Tourists which had two hits singles. The first was a cover of the classic Dusty Springfield tune “I Only Want to Be With You,” and the second was a song about…you guessed it, home. No matter how great your trip away may have been, remember, the best part about being gone… is coming back. Today's Happy Medium Song of the Day is “So Good to be Back Home Again.” (Please use the comments box to share your thoughts.)
Before there was the Eurythmics, Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart were in a band called The Tourists which had two hits singles. The first was a cover of the classic Dusty Springfield tune “I Only Want to Be With You,” and the second was a song about…you guessed it, home. No matter how great your trip away may have been, remember, the best part about being gone… is coming back. Today's Happy Medium Song of the Day is “So Good to be Back Home Again.” (Please use the comments box to share your thoughts.)