Tag Archives: house

Music on a Monday // Home Sweet Homes

4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, 5 Songs I am Singing, 6 Looking Back // Memories!, Stuff I Actually Think, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

My TOP TEN songs about house and home.

This playlist is a huge category.  There are soooooo many songs about hearth and home or houses and hometowns.  Quite overwhelming, actually.  I had to leave off another 8 or 9 that I really liked (like “Lucky” Jason Mraz and Colbie Callait – to be used on a future list)  just because I was determined to keep this list at 10.  There is a playlist from YouTube at the end of this blog that includes each of the songs I have written about here.

I’m a home-grown, home-loving, home-girl.  I don’t necessarily mean a house, either.  I mean home the feeling, home the people.  Home.  Sweet home.

LORD, it seems You have been my home forever, from ‘once upon a time,’ to ‘happily ever after,’ (from before the mountains were formed until time is no more), You are God and You have been my God and my home.  Psalm 90.1-2, my paraphrase

Check out my top ten songs and why they made the cut.

#1  Back Home Again, John Denver

Long story, told as sparingly as possible.  The rest are shorter.

Why do I love this song?  There is a whole family story.  I cannot capture it here, but suffice it to say that my brother Joe (yes, that Joe), ran away from home.  My dad had accepted a church far, far away from any home we’d ever known and there was some culture shock and he was a HS freshman and of course, we showed up mid-year, so it is hard.

It tore our family up – days of Joe just missing.  But after the better part of a week, he was found and the police were putting him on a plane and my parents drove to New Orleans to get him and he wasn’t there.  The airline said he hadn’t boarded.   We all mourned even more.  My mom was sick with sorrow.  We assumed he ran again after the police delivered him to the airport.  There was a heavy darkness at our house.

Then a phone call: the flight he’d been on was cancelled – he arrived late (airlines can be dumb).  We all climbed in the Ford Station Wagon and went to get him.  What a relief.  There was much love and my dad took us to a really nice steak house and we feasted on the fatted calf, so to speak.  The son had come home.

It was nearing midnight, I think, as we drove back to Robert, Louisiana, past our school-night bedtime.  The excitement was quieting down and we were just so happy he was there.  The family was settled in listening to the radio, still, as the car hummed along.  Just as we pulled in to the driveway, John Denver’s voice filled the car

There’s a storm across the valley, clouds are rollin’ in

the afternoon is heavy on your shoulders.

There’s a truck out on the four lane, a mile or more away

the whinin’ of his wheels just makes it colder.

He’s an hour away from ridin’ on your prayers up in the sky

and ten days on the road are barely gone.

There’s a fire softly burning; supper’s on the stove

but it’s the light in your eyes that makes him warm.

My dad put the car in park, but none of us moved, not a muscle.  We all sensed the holiness of the moment, the serendipity of this particular song at this distinct second in time…and we just sat there…in the driveway…in the late night – listening, knowing somehow God was blessing the boy coming home.  We listened to every single word and note of that song, almost afraid to even breathe…

It’s the sweetest thing I know of, just spending time with you

it’s the little things that make a house a home.

Like a fire softly burning and supper on the stove.

And the light in your eyes that makes me warm.

 

Hey, it’s good to be back home again

Sometimes this old farm feels like a long lost friend

Yes, ‘n, hey it’s good to be back home again.

It was a moment barely spoken of for years, for it was too precious.  And it was this monumental transcendent time-fragment we’ll never forget.  Because for all of the fear and sadness and rejoicing those days had brought, that moment became the time we knew we were together, all those miles from our kin and the life we’d known before, and we were home.

And the brother I loved was safe.  My little Joey.

So how could I not love this song?  It’s my number one song about home.

#2  The House that Built Me, Miranda Lambert

This was the Country Music Awards song of the Year in 2011, I believe, maybe 2010.  Such a great song.  It is the story of adult going back to the house she grew up in and asking the owner to let her come inside to look around.  She calls it “the house that built me” because of all the memories of her experiences growing up there.  It immediately, when I heard it, reminded me of 1723 York Street, an address which, if you read this blog, you’ll recognize {the house of my carefree-childhood memories}. A quick search and you will see the address shows up regularly here…I wonder how many times?  :)

And I have always wanted to go back there, to my house-that-built-me and see if I could go through it.  And if the owners now ever stumble on this blog – I hope they won’t think I am crazy.  I hope they’ll just watch the Miranda Lambert video and be able to understand that many-many-many years ago, I was a little girl there, and the memories are sweet and fine.  O, the projects I planned and the dreams I dreamed and adventures I experienced there…

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it

This brokenness in me might start healing…

If I could just come in I swear I’ll leave

Won’t take nothing but a memory from the house that built me.

#3  Home is Wherever I’m with You, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes

This song is so fun-gritty, backwoods-country-AND-modern and did-I-mention: fun.  The sentiment is that “home” is where your “people” are, the ones you love the most, not so much a location and street address.  And that is a true thing!  Cute-cute-cute!

#4  Who Says You Can’t Go Home, Bon Jovi

Well Bon Jovi is a great rocker who wrote and performed this song, which highlighted the work of Habitat for Humanity.  I like him a lot.  Crank it up and roll down the windows and sing loud while you are enjoying your neighborhood.  You can go home again!

#5  I’ll Be Home for Christmas, The Carpenters

Everybody and their dog has performed this classic Christmas number.  This song, written about a WWII soldier coming home from war for Christmas, was first recorded by Bing Crosby in 1943.  But then the likes of Amy Grant, Anne Murray and Andy Williams recorded it, too.  Other covers were made by the Beach Boys, Smokey Robinson, Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand and Brad Paisley.  Neil Diamond, Kenny Chesney and Elvis sang it, too.  Hundreds of people have recorded the song and it is a lovely,melancholy tune recalling, with great affection, the beauty of “home.”  It speaks of a longing, a homesickness, that resonates for all of us when we just wish we could be with the people we love, in a place we’re together.

Dave and I were talking about the renditions we heard most growing up.  And though I feel like I heard the Johnny Mathis version a lot, we determined The Carpenters was the primary version we grew up with, that Karen’s haunting voice was the smooth sound that made this song relevant in the 1970s and beyond.  She interpreted well and as far as songs about home, this one has to be in the mix because, Christmas or not – sometimes dreaming and remembering is the only way we actually get to be with our families, our loves.

#6  Home, Phillip Phillips

Phillip Phillips won 2012 American Idol.  He was good and my pick from early on.  He is very earthy and young, but also sort of timeless and seasoned and when the 2 finalists got to pick a song they’d release in case they won and I saw him perform this song, I was like, “O-my-gosh he will positively win this!”  He just killed this song.  In a good way.

And you know how sometimes when you first hear a song it takes a while to grow on you?  This song was not like that. I loved it immediately!  It speaks of some one making a place for you, a home, a safe place.  LOVE it.

Hold on, to me as we go

As we roll down this unfamiliar road

And although this wave is stringing us along

Just know you’re not alone

Cause i’m going to make this place your home

 

Settle down, it’ll all be clear

Don’t pay no mind to the demons

They fill you with fear

The trouble it might drag you down

If you get lost, you can always be found

 

Just know you’re not alone

Cause i’m going to make this place your home

#7  Green, Green Grass of Home, Tom Jones

It was the 1960s…and this song just sucked me in. I couldn’t seem to hear it enough back then and the surprise ending got me every. single. time.  Tragic.

#8  Home, Michael Buble

Just smooth and sweet, sung by the super-suave crooner of the day.  He is on the road (trying to write her letters) and and he is missing his love and he just wants to get on the plane and go home.

 

#9  House of Love, Amy Grant and Vince Gill

They sang this in 1994 way before they married and I do not really understand the official video (the little house thing?), but I just enjoy this hope-filled song.  I had a friend going through a break-up when this was on the charts and this was the song we prayed through.  And it is a fun song to sing and “the lights are coming on in the house of love.”  And they did for my friend!

#10  Taking You Home, Don Henley

The gravely-soulful drummer-boy of the Eagles.  “Take my hand, love, I’m taking you home, Taking you home.”

Come on.  Let’s go home.  :)

Embedded // the WHOLE playlist, in no particular order:

“For me, home is the coming together of my past memories and experiences, of my love for my children, husband and friends;…my optimism tangibly expressed in life-enhacing ways, room by room…” –Alexandra Stoddard

The York Street House & a Song for a Sunday

5 Songs I am Singing, 6 Looking Back // Memories!, Stuff I Actually Think, , , , ,

If you have been on this blog over time, you know that 1723 York Street, my childhood home, still holds pieces of my heart.

The windows are all smaller now. Modern. The neighbors got closer. Some trees are gone…(googlemaps image)

The  Academy of Country Music just named this the song of the year.

 

The House that Built Me by Miranda Lambert


 

It’s like she was reading my mail.

House Call

2 Mi Familia, 6 Looking Back // Memories!, Stuff I Actually Think,

What makes your home different from the neighbor’s (whose house was built by the same contractor and for all the fancy outdoor facades, from an aerial view, is just another rabbit hutch in suburbia)?  What is in your house that makes it uniquely yours and not just another picture from The Pottery Barn catalogue?

Here is how you might know you are in my house and not the neighbor’s:

I use old doors, vintage windows, worn fabrics and well-loved furniture-with-a-history to throw a little intrigue into all things new. And though these pictures don’t show it?  I am not afraid of color!  Not at all. 

I re-purpose what some one once decided to throw away in favor of the newer-latest-better-whatever into suprise uses (a beveled-glass, multi-paned door hangs horizontally as  room divider catching the light and starting conversations….doorknobs are picture hangers…). 

I cherish the story told in the things my parents and grandparents owned before me, though these are precious few (a dime store candy dish from my Grandma Baker, old Christmas ornaments my Aunt Rosie was finished with, but gave me to start our marriage, books my dad read, or the one he wrote for me with his story, pictures and stories with them from my mom-the-“photog”). 

There is a della-robia embellished, golden-yellow biscotti jar which holds tea bags and hot-chocolate mixes, never once a biscotti.  And I have never actually owned a cookie jar.  Hmmm.  We just bake them and eat them apparently.  Curious.

There are the “temporary” burlap drapes (satin-edged so they don’t look like a feed bag, thank-you very much) and a #10 roasted red-pepper can holding my serving utensils. 

I have books everywhere covering my interests from gardening to worship to business and back.  In the coffee table an Albert Einstein rests atop a Beth Moore.

There are paintings by Rocky in Kindergarten and silhouettes of the grandchildren Stephanie gave me for Christmas (a hot decorating trend right now). 

  

There is the family table with imbedded glitter from my children’s projects and now my grandchildren, fossilizing our existance in wood. 

While I refuse (or attempt to refuse) to be a “collector,” as I look around the kitchen, I see I have aquired several interesting rooster representations over the years, so one might surmise I am a rooster-lover, in the very French country, non-kitschy sense. 

Although my 70’s lamp and two over-sized 70’s chairs in one area could only be called kitschy (Dave and Tara asked if I was going to turn the family room into a 70s lounge – no). 

 

My vintage Di Corsi prints make me smile everytime I remember how inexpensively I got them because of the horrendous frames I discovered them in (super-gold-and-gaudy-in-plastic, anyone?), but whose colors and hues soothe and calm and have they not created the most amazing focal point over my very hip and modern headboard – oh, yes!

And please, don’t tell anyone yet, not until I know just exactly how to display and share this next delight in a way that Dave can tolerate (for he was even embarrassed when when I was making the hilarious purchase at The Goodwill Store), but, my friends, I bought a classic piece of Christian art, circa 1961, of Jesus knocking on the UN building (as if He were knocking at a door?)!  It was painted by the beloved Sunday-School-leaflet illustrator of the 40s, 50s and 60s, Harry Anderson (his is the art of my first Bible stories and visions of God).  The print I have was obviously framed and had been hanging somewhere since at least 1964, so I have an obvious era-based affinity for it.  I find it hilarious because I think Jesus would look at it and go, “I would not re-size myself to Godzilla-like-proportions to present myself to people.”  And I think He and I could have a great laugh about it, even as we expressed to the late Mr. Anderson* how truly talented he was and that no offense is intended.  Dave is afraid I will hang it and people will think we are taking it seriously as an icon of our faith or something.  For this reason, I may be forced to hang it in the office-ish part of our MBR suite, where only people who could truly discern would be allowed.

These are a few of the ways you might know you had wandered in to my house and not the neighbor’s house (in the re-reading, they sound more important than they probably are, but they are mine and me).  What about yours?  What makes your house special, distinct, yours-all-yours?  Do tell!

I love home!…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF: Do the projects – the ones that keep making it more and more ours.

*Dave called Harry Anderson the Thomas Kincaid of the mid-century era.  T-hee.

1723 York Street

2 Mi Familia, 6 Looking Back // Memories!, Stuff I Actually Think, , , , ,

About once a year  I dream of my childhood home – at least one of them.   We moved quite a bit, so there were many “homes.”   But there is “the one.”   It is the one I lived in from the summer of 1965 through  early September  1970.   It was my parent’s first home purchase so it was a big deal.   It is the one that was only 4 blocks from Wallace Elementary, where I attended school from Kindergarten through 4th grades.   It was just 4 blocks from Grandma’s house and a couple of blocks from my cousin Diana, who would drop by and “pick me up” on her way to school.  

I loved that house.   There is no explanation for the value I place on it except maybe: It was green grass and having a best friend just across the alley and lilacs and long summer days.   It was a rusty old swingset on which I spent hours singing my heart out to the heavens.   It was neighbors who paid us nickels and quarters for rocks and shells we took door-to-door, us thinking we were giving them a real bargain,  kind people knowingly supporting our adventure, divining we really just needed some penny candy money for the corner grocer 5 blocks away.   It was neighborhood relays with homemade ribbons and paper drives and screen doors that slammed musically to the cricket’s songs as we ran to capture lightening bugs for jewelry.   It was innocence and family, it was friends and church.   It was my mom on the piano teaching us to sing gospel for all we were worth.   It was the safe place.

Several times over the years I have been moved to send Christmas greetings to the current inhabitants of the house at 1723 York Street in Des Moines, Iowa wishing them all the joy and love and peace I experienced there.   They have never replied and for all I know there are restraining orders on file concerning me.

So, occasionally I dream about it and have googled the address from time to time.   Last week  I did so and was overwhelmed and delighted to see that “my house,” my place of nostalgic extravagance, was up for sale.   My parents bought it for $12,000 in ’65 and sold it for $17,000 in ’70.   It is listed at $110,000 now, which seems an amazing bargain for such a magical childhood palace.  

There it was.   My 1723 York Street house!   I have actually always daydreamed about owning it now.   And there it was on a real estate site – with pictures!   And even though the colors are different (the woodwork is painted now), it has not changed much at all.   It seems smaller.   It’s old (built in 1913).   The old-fashioned 3-car garage with swing-open doors is long gone, replaced by a nice new 2 car version with an overhead like everyone else.   But it is my house, my home, my street.   That is my grass and enclosed side porch (lots of Barbie time there).   My trees are gone, as is the sidewalk that once went straight from the front stairs to the public walkway.   But it is my house, my home, my street.

The other day, I went “thrifting” with the girls and made 2 totally fruitless purchases, except that they gave me something tangible to remember those years there.   I got an over-sized, burnt-orange Haeger pottery ash tray just like my grandma used to have in her house (there are slots for at least 9 cigarettes!).   So 1960s!   And, I got an old black, rotary, wall phone by Bell – one exactly like the one that hung in our kitchen at 1723 York Street when my phone number was 266-7121.   These are worthless artifacts except to look at and recall a time and place and the innocent girl who skipped and romped through it.

 

I am somewhat war-damaged now.   Time has taken it’s toll on the body.   Circumstances have wreaked havoc on the heart.   The innocence has been lost and lost again, but finds repair and healing in the heart of the Father.   I can’t help but believe that my address in heaven will be 1723 York Street, for I am that same girl yet, beneath this outer crust, but there, I will never grow old.

Forgive my indulgent reminiscing…Jeanie

NOTE TO READERS:   Two days after I “found” it, the listing (www.dsmhomes.com)  seems to have been removed, which I can only assume means it sold.   I think finding it was a gift from God to help me update my dreams…

pictured: the house at 1723 York Street in Des Moines as it currently looks and the dining room; a couple of shots of the kitchen at the York Street house; the York Street living room – it’s windows are it’s true glory; the old Bell phone and Haeger ashtray I just got while “thrifting” with the girls; the girls in Olde Town Arvada; a cute bakery sign in Olde Town.