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Back Home Again 

By John Denver
Recorded by Randy Lynn Mitchell
Back to Denver (John, that is). On the way back from a week at the beach with some of our kin, I thought about this song from John Denver. Also the title of his 8th album, "Back Home Again" was decidedly country. A truck-driving man is returning home after ten days on the road, and his partner is gathering up "all the news to tell him" since he's been gone.

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
Ten days on the road are barely gone
There's a fire softly burning, supper's on the stove
It's the light in your eyes that makes him warm


James Taylor has a song in which he sings: "Oh, it's a lovely stretch of highway / Leading me on / And my favorite thing is to miss my home / When I'm gone, as soon as I'm gone."  Neil Diamond adds "Being lost is worth the coming home."  Be it ever so humble.

Hey, it's good to be back home again
Sometimes this old farm feels like a long lost friend
Yes, and hey, it's good to be back home again.


Home is much more than a place. It's memories, images, sounds, scents, flavors, family, friends. Thomas Wolfe in his 1940 novel told us "You can't go home again." It's true; time and circumstances change everything, and our memories are only perspectives on what was. In one of my own songs, I wrote "Looking back on the things we've done is like a dirty windshield in the sun; you stare until the glare almost makes you blind..."   We can't see the past clearly, but fragments of memory provide some comfort in "being back."

There's all the news to tell him, how'd you spend your time?
What's the latest thing the neighbors say
And your mother called last Friday, sunshine made her cry
You felt the baby move just yesterday


It seems to me that home is really a reflection of our closest relationships. Two heads are better than one, and the collective memories of two (or more) people bring the picture into better focus. What "we" remember comes closer to the truth than what "I" remember. When John and Paul sang "You and I have memories, longer than the road that stretches out ahead," there was no way they could know that one of them would be gone in 10 short years. Memories are past-tense, and they may suggest what lies ahead but they can't predict what will be. In Jackson Browne's perspective, "...though the future's there for anyone to change, still you know it seems / it would be easier sometimes to change the past..."   But for now, the creature comforts will have to suffice.

​Oh, the time that I can lay this tired old body down
Feel your fingers feather soft on me
The kisses that I live for, the love that lights my way
The happiness that livin' with you brings me

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
The light in your eyes that makes me warm


It's the little things that make a house a home, and it's good to revisit them when we can. Yes, it is good to be back home again.

Randy
  
telephone:
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email: OfficeManager.BorderlandsUU@gmail.com   
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AMADO, AZ 85645