The sound of 'home' (or, Paci is brooding)
Nov. 2nd, 2010 01:00 amThe last several years I've been obsessed with cultural depictions of 'home', in movies/TV, music and literature. For instance:
- As much as I loved theRose/9/10 arc, my favorite parts of the new 'Doctor Who' were the stories that had to do with the Doctor having the option to bring his home planet back into existence, and his dilemma.
- The turning point in 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' was when Buffy's mom kicked her out of the house: The Buffy that came back to Sunnydale at the beginning of the 3rd season was a different girl, not leastways because she'd lost the sense kids have sometimes that 'home' always means 'welcome' and 'safe.'
- Likewise, when Angel and his crew were forced out of the Hyperion by his demonic-sort-of-granddaughter on 'Angel', what was most jarring was that all the weapons, all the research materials - all their stuff that they clung to for comfort - wasn't available to them.
- In two of my current favorite book series - Rhys Bowen's 'Her Royal Spyness' and Gail Carriger's 'Parasol Protectorate' - the heroines (and their leading men) are homeless in some way: Either they have no money & have lost the family seat, are asked to leave their home, or find that the other person - not the builiding - is their home.
But all of that is sort of difficult to dissect in a single post (which is all I feel like devoting to this at the moment), in addition to being highly subjective. So, I searched through my music to find all the songs about 'home' and narrowed it down to a reasonable list.
15. Our House, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
14. Home, Olin and The Moon
13. Comin' Home, City and Colour
12. Miles From Our Home, Cowboy Junkies
11. A Place Called Home, PJ Harvey
10. She's Leaving Home, The Beatles
9. You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To, Dinah Shore
8. Sand In My Shoes, Dido
7. Our House, Madness
6. Find Your Way Back Home, Dishwalla
5. I'll Bring You Home, Jennifer O'Connor
4. Can't Find My Way Home, Blind Faith (Eric Clapton & Steve Winwood)
3. Home, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros
2. Coming Home, The 88
1. New Way Home, Foo Fighters
***
Runners-up (Doesn't have 'home' in title, but prominently in lyrics, or otherwise evokes a feeling of 'home'.)
1. As If By Magic, La Roux
"And although/ You're the only home I've ever known/ As if by magic/ thoughts of you are gone"
2.Weight of the Ocean, We're about 9
"And I am in bed making a list in red/ of all the things I said I'm gonna do before I'm dead/ the clock just won't wait it's up against fate/
and so are we it's a perfect damn day/ to take out the trash to do the damn laundry/ to put out an ad to sell the damn car/ or just waste away a perfect damn day is a perfect damn day"