Song of the Week, November 6, 2006 - Home

[PotatoPicker]

Home
from the albums Essentials, Live at Club Passim – New Year’s Eve 2005, and American Jukebox Fables

That night the walls were speaking
The pipes inside them creaking
Told a secret that was rising in the hall
And you lay beside me sleeping
With the dreams that you were keeping
The smoke was in the stairwell outside the wall

We had moved in just November
The first night, remember
We lit a candle, laid a mattress on the floor
And we toasted to our savings
To adulthood, to behaving, to this house with drafty windows, creaking doors

[chorus]
Home...is the woman 'cross the table
Home...is dreaming in my sheets
Home...home...
This house is just an address, you're my home

So we stood like statues staring
The sirens came in blaring
The Johnson's brought us coffee for the cold
And somewhere I heard some singing
It was my radio alarm clock ringing
With a wake-up call singing to my soul

[repeat chorus]

[bridge]
I can't believe I'm thanking Jesus
As I watch my roof come down
But I can put back all the pieces
As long as you're around

Home...sits across the table
Home...is dreaming in my sheets
Home...home...
This house is just an address, you lift me from all sadness
This house is just an address, you're my home
You are my home
You're my home, you're my home, you are my home.

Copyright Ellis Paul Publishing SESAC

Once again I have the privilege of kicking off the discussion of one of my favorite Ellis Paul songs, Home. By now I suspect most of us have heard the story behind the song – its origins as an unfinished (or at least un-presented) wedding present for his bride, and its resurgence as a memorial to the beautiful house they were selling – and even more importantly to the beautiful “home” they had created. It all makes for a great backdrop story at his shows. That’s what it means to Ellis. What does it mean to us ? Can we really have such a person in our life ? Or is such a person just a distant dream, a “beautiful Lothlorien from a time moved on….”

There’s saying that “Home is where the heart is.” I think this song (rightly) turns that saying on its head. “Heart is where the home is.” In earlier discussions on this song I talked about how much I loved the second half of the bridge “But I can put back all the pieces as long as you’re around”. Our hearts, bruised and battered by our own failures, our personal disappointments, our misguided and misbegotten relationships from our past, can be put back together. They can be put back together, piece by piece, and end up stronger than they were before. I think that’s what the singer tells us through this song. The home is the heart they have built together, and no matter what happens to those physical pieces, that’s the home that can always survive. Sappy, yes…… but also to some very real. I know I have been through both ends of that, and maybe only with the pain of losing it before can I properly appreciate the grace of what I have now, and let go of the physical trappings of a home and see it for what it really is...... home.

Another note – I love the image of the radio alarm clock singing its final tune, waking him not from his sleep, but from his grief about the house burning down with a wake-up call to his soul that causes him to be thanking Jesus as I watch my roof come down.

Some notes on production as well. The version on Essentials is certainly the smoothest, easiest to listen to of the three published versions. The keyboard part is certainly very well done – but in some ways I still prefer the slightly rough edge the song had the very first time I heard Ellis perform it, when he was still perhaps kicking the tires a little on how he was going to play the piano part. I would love to have hear him play the Bb version this past weekend at Circle of Friends…… Somehow hearing the keyboard played slightly less “flawless” or less “smooth” makes the song, and its achingly honest refrain, more raw and more real to me.

[SusanH]

Jeff-

I completely agree about the piano production of this wonderful song. The original verision and earlier live versions have a special feeling that goes with the story.

He wanted to write a song on an instrument he couldn't play to make it more special. The original piano is touching. An "I know this isn't perfect...but it has to be said". Really beautiful.

Not to say that the version on Essential is great. But I do prefer the original.

When he played it this weekend in Franklin at the Circle of Friends show. He played in bflat, using the scary black keys; and it sounded wonderful because there was a mistake. Its such a special song when it's not perfect.

[Thomas]

Hi Jeff,
thanx for your "kick off". I love the song even though it's not perfect (or just because it's not perfect?)
Does anything have to be perfect? Is there a need to be perfect when you've got the feeling that something's going right just as it does?

To me there are two essential messages in this song:

to love something/somebody means to let it/him/her go whenever/wherever it/he/she wants to go to 'cause you have no bearing on this - just like EP said a few years ago: "I'm letting go 'cause holdin' on is killing me"

and the second message:

like another famous German songwriter (Herbert Groenemeyer) once said - "home is just a real good feeling but it's not a place to stay"

I love this very special song 'cause it's as simple as it is.

Thomas

[Jalapenos]

On Friday at Tupelo, I told Ellis how my mom cries during Home. I say cries rather than cried because it has happened more than once. She was a bit embarassed


Hi Pebbles

[Patti]

Yes this song is one of his best. What a beautiful and true message, It still amazes me how Ellis can put into words what so many people feel but aren't able to verbalize. Saturday night he played the song on a beautiful grand piano, which he said," is no toy". The few mistakes and his smile/pause about them were well worth it.

I love the Live at Passim version best..

[kilroyscarnival]

Beautiful stuff here so far.

This song rings so simply and sincerely, that it has moved me to tears more than once as well. Loss and survival. Pain and comfort. House and home.

It's a personal story, but also a profoundly universal one. One can only think of all the people who lost their homes in the tsunami, the earthquake in Pakistan, in Katrina and Wilma, or people we know who have lost their belongings and their 'place' to fire. I was just reminding a friend online last night of when we were diagonal neighbors on a street with a fire station on it. Especially in the winter, near the holidays, a siren in the middle of the night would rip my heart open, because I knew the pain and fear that someone was experiencing on the waiting end of that wail.

I think also of the strength of mind to observe, I can put back all the pieces as long as you're around. Whether in the moment or in the aftermath, it's that spirit that gets us through the worst.

I don't know how many fellow NPR junkies there are here, but I listen to Weekend Edition Saturday nearly every week. Scott Simon has had a series of interviews with a Katrina survivor named Randy Adams, and darn if I haven't cried EVERY time the man is on. Not because his story is so sad -- his loss of home, of place, of city, and for a time, of love (his wife left him.) But who he was, his utter humility and strength of character, shattered me, and was evident every time he expressed himself. If you like, have a listen to the interviews, between plays of "Home." Pass the Kleenex.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... Id=5508148

Sometimes when people say, "Home is where the heart is," I reply, just because I'm me, "But I take my heart with me when I travel." In the voice of Terry Gilliam in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, "I'm using it!"

Peace and joy,

Ann

[Pebbles]

Thanks Katie.

Yes, every time I hear Home I am moved to tears. To me, it is the epitome of what a love song should be. I have never had a song touch my heart like that before. When it comes on I just have to hit the repeat button. It can get embarassing on the drive to work.


Robin

[KarenZ]

Ann and all, thanks for the thoughts and comments. Yes....this song has reduced me to tears as well...causing some difficulty in wrapping my head around what words to write....

I suspect if you asked 100 people to define home you’d get close to 100 (if not 100) different answers. There’s no right or wrong, of course. American servicemen serving in foreign countries often refer to the U.S. as home. When I’m driving home a long distance and cross the state line into Pennsylvania, I often feel like I’m home. Or when landing at the Pittsburgh airport. For sure when I’m back on familiar roads it sure feels like home. So I’m thinking it’s not it’s so much the geographic location (since the geographic location can be a moving target) as much as the feelings evoked…which Ellis captures so succinctly and so beautifully. Another important take-home message is that it’s not material things that ever bring long lasting happiness or satisfaction…it’s interactions with loved ones, doing good deeds, sharing, stretching our ethical muscles....those are the feel-good feelings that last.

The new version of “home” seems a little slower than the AJF version. And it's not as loud. Just Ellis humming and some piano on the first verse. A bit of bass guitar comes in on the second verse (I guess it could be an upright bass)....then some really soft percussion that's hardly noticeable at the end of the second verse. My kind of percussion. Those continue into the first chorus with (I think) the addition of a bit of acoustic guitar on the second chorus. I can hear the soft brushes a little more on the third chorus. I like how Ellis takes the note up on the word my (breathing in my sheets) which is a tiny departure from the usual melody. The vocals are exceptionally expressive and heartfelt. (That hasn't changed.) I like the overall "quietness" of it. Makes the sobbing much more apparent.

KarenZ

[Sue Ellen]

I've had a love/hate relationship with this song; it inevitably (man, is there a spell check feature here?) makes me cry. It is so beautiful and tender, and, I think speaks to a rare and precious gift...

But home can be many things:

Home...is the children around my table
Home...is their laughter, playing on our street.

Sue Ellen

[Jalapenos]

See? You're not the only one, mum. It's ok I'm sure Ellis likes knowing that his music affects people in such ways.

[care]

i realize i'm a little behind on the songs here but i wanted to add my own story to this topic.

I saw ellis at the Iron Horse in Northhampton in April of this past year - when "home" was a relatively new song still. I can remember "people watching" during the song, since it has such a moving effect on me - i wanted to see how other people reacted to it.

the one thing that caught my eye was a woman holding a young child in her arms (girl must have been maybe 6?), and the (presuambly) mother was sitting there rocking her child back and forth whispering the lyrics to her, "this house is just an address you're my home"

definatly one of the most moving moments i've seen.