I Don't Live Here Anymore: 5 Songs on Going Home
This week's songs are from Neil Young, Joni Mitchell & the Band, Carole King, Joan Shelley, Hank Williams, and U2
In Memoriam
RIP Jimmy Cliff
I was first aware of Jimmy Cliff from his cover of Johnny Nash’s “I Can See Clearly Now” from Cool Runnings. Then as I got into punk rock, Joe Strummer and members of Rancid regularly name-check Jimmy Cliff and The Harder They Come and I thought “The Cool Runnings Guy?!” Having since enjoyed a lot of Cliff’s music, I’m glad to have been cured of my ignorance. Hopefully Mr. Cliff is now enjoying that pie up in the sky; he passed away yesterday at age 81.
Jimmy Cliff - “Sitting in Limbo”
Lest we pigeonhole Jimmy Cliff as a reggae musician, where he excels is bringing elements from soul, and especially gospel music. “Many Rivers to Cross” is a show-stopping example, but so is “Sitting in Limbo.”
RIP Gary Mounfield
Gary Mounfield was the bassist for The Stone Roses and Primal Scream. I don’t know much about the man himself, but really enjoyed his bass playing. Mounfield passed away last week.
Stone Roses - “Waterfall”
The drumming shuffles along, the vocals and guitars are distorted, echoing and loose. All of it in a very hazy mix. But what gives the song its viscosity, connecting the music to the metaphor in the lyrics, is Mounfield’s bass.
It’s Thanksgiving this week. So we’re aiming for a bit of counter programming from last week’s bit of darkness and serving up some musical comfort food.
If you’re in need of a little extra comfort, revisit last year’s entry on gratitude and generosity.
To borrow a cliche, they say you can never go home. But that is to suggest that people are looking to go back in time, to reverse course. Home is really just an idea anyway and ideas shift and change with time. Maybe this Thanksgiving you’re hosting in a house you just moved to, or going to your in-laws, gathering with friends, or tagging along to a friend’s family. Even if the places aren’t familiar, maybe the people are, or at the very least, the feelings are.
Here are 5 songs about going home.
And the more I try to speak
The more I lose that earthly tone
And before heaven proves me hopeless
I won’t forget my way back home
- “My Way Back Home”, Dawes
Neil Young, The Band, and Joni Mitchell - “Helpless” (Live)
On Thanksgiving Day in 1976, The Band organized what was billed as their Farewell live performance at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. They brought in various collaborators and from their time in studios and touring since the early 1960s (Ronny Hawkins, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, etc.) and their musical heroes (Allen Toussaint, Dr. John, Muddy Waters), and for some reason Neil Diamond. Before the concert, filmed and documented as The Last Waltz by Martin Scorsese, the 5,000 attendees were treated to a Turkey dinner and some ballroom dancing (ticket price: $25). That’s hospitality.
It’s hard to pick a favorite between a few different songs in the film. But the one that works as a film just as well as it does a song is Neil Young and the Band’s performance of Young’s “Helpless,” with Joni Mitchell singing back ups from just off the side of the stage. While it’s one of Young’s most personal songs, about his Canadian childhood. Despite what is known to be a pretty tough childhood, he evokes the magic and mystery of the landscape. He’s still visiting in his mind because, for good or bad, “All my changes were there.”
It’s a romantic idea. The depth of feeling in the performance backs it up with a lot of open spaces and sweeping vocals. I love how the band doesn’t come in until the second bar, creating a massive weight on a downbeat that hits all the harder when you remember that, aside from Levon Helm, everyone on the stage was Canadian. It’s a full circle moment for the group, taking a moment—together—to take stock of how far they’ve come while never letting go of where it all began.
“Play me one more song
That I’ll always remember
I can recall whenever I
Find myself, too, all alone
I can sing me home”
- “Celebrate Me Home”, Kenny Loggins
Carole King - “Home Again”
Few things sound as warm and cozy as any piano and drums recorded in California between 1968 and 1978 or so. At the same time King was recording Tapestry in Studio B at A&M Records, Joni Mitchell was in Studio C recording Blue (James Taylor and Mitchell appear on both albums). Like Blue, Tapestry is one of those albums that sounds and feels like a comforting familiar place you want to go back to. While Mitchell defines herself by leaving “on a lonely road and traveling, traveling, traveling,” and never returning, King is desperate to get back home. “Home Again” is one of those songs that solves the problem that it’s written about. I’d call it a band-aid, but it’s more of a blanket.
“Out of all those kinds of people
You got a face with a view
I’m just an animal looking for a home, and
Share the same space for a minute or two”
- “This Must Be the Place”, Talking Heads
Joan Shelley - “We’d Be Home”
I took a “Rock Music of the 70s & 80s” class in college. The professor would ask every few classes about songwriters whose lyrics could be classified as poetry. The first name blurted out was always “Jim Morrison”…🙄…Joan Shelley, however, absolutely belongs in that category. From the Jeff Tweedy-produced Joan Shelley, “We’d Be Home” is economical and vivid in establishing the space where two people—who maybe don’t know each other that well—feel destined to be together. Shelley exhibits exceptional control over her voice, and uses alternative tunings to underscore that voice with deep resonance. In this space, you can practically hear logs crackling in a fireplace.
“There’s a fire that’s been burnin’
Right outside my door
I can’t see but I feel it
And it helps to keep me warm”
- “Take Me Home”, Phil Collins
Hank Williams - “Ready to Go Home”
Hank Williams famously died out on the road, literally on his way to a gig on New Year’s Day, 1953. He had recorded “Ready to Go Home” as a demo in 1951, but this original version wouldn’t be released until 1957. Jimmy Skinner would release the song as “Will You Be Ready?” in 1953. The song itself, like a lot of Williams’ songs, feels like a folk or gospel song that was always here, woven into the fabric of time. Like “Amazing Grace,” “Happy Birthday,” or “Yesterday,” it’s something you have to remind yourself, “Somebody wrote this.”
“Take me to your heart
Feel me in your bones
Just one more night
And I’m coming off this long and winding road”
- “Home Sweet Home”, Mötley Crüe
U2 - “A Sort of Homecoming”
For my money, The Unforgettable Fire is U2’s best album. One thing the band does exceptionally well is kick off their albums with a bang. Get a load of this list of Side 1, Track 1s:
“I Will Follow”, Boy
“Sunday Bloody Sunday,” War
“A Sort of Homecoming,” The Unforgettable Fire
“Where the Streets Have No Name,” The Joshua Tree
“Beautiful Day”, All That You Can’t Leave Behind
I’m no U2 super-fan, but you’ve got to tip your Stetson to them for coming out swinging, and the first four are on four consecutive albums! While most of the other songs featured on this week’s entry are intimate, “A Sort of Homecoming” is bright, open, and celebratory. Like Young in “Helpless,” Bono sings of almost mythic landscapes that are home to him, but instead of leaving those images in his mind, he’s determined to return:
Through the rain and fallen snow
Across the fields of mourning to a light that’s in the distance.
Oh, don’t sorrow, no don’t weep
For tonight at last I am coming home.
I am coming home.
Thanks for reading. Enjoy listening.
Full playlists of songs featured in 5 Songs: