This is probably one of the oldest songs that will end up as part of this project. It is about my love for Yonkers, NY. I wrote it after being away for awhile, out on the west coast. I hate to be so cliche but I did not really know how much I loved my hometown until I was thousands of miles away. Growing up in tight knit neighborhoods, still hanging out with friends I made in first grade, being close to NYC but far enough away to be able to live in a big old house with a backyard, and just a general blue-collar ethos that seemed to bind everything together. These things, and so many more, made it an amazing place to grow up and call home, a fact I only realized in hindsight. Now, having made my home in a very different place, where I am raising two children, I cannot help but compare how differently my kids will grow up. In many ways, it is a change I am happy with. After all, my wife and I chose to build a house and a life here. But when I look back, through a pair of admittedly rose-colored glasses that get rosier every year, I find it hard not to lament that there are certain aspects of my youth, really positive and formative ones, that my kids will never experience. And I guess that is why, no matter where I live, in some small way, Yonkers NY will always be home to me.
(click through for lyrics)
Always Be Home to Me
Flowers may not line the streets anymore
Flags may not wave in the breeze
You may wonder what happened as you’re passing through
But it’ll always be home to me
The shops are all different down on Palisade Ave
New signs are all you will see
Downtown’s re-arranged, but my memory is unchanged
Because it’ll always be home to me
Don’t know what it is that makes me return
Time after time after time
Don’t know why I love this dirty old town
Don’t know why I feel like she’s mine
There’s the front porch where I first kissed a girl
There’s the Hudson and the Tappan Zee
I know I can’t stay, but I can’t stay away
It’ll always be home to me
Well I dreamt I set roots on the banks of the river
Like my folks did in seventy-three
Our house it still stands, on its small patch of land
That’s always been home to me
No comments:
Post a Comment