Staff Pix 11/16: Homecoming

The Milk Crate staff considers songs that remind them of home and returning to it in this week’s theme. Tune in Tuesdays from 1-2 EST to the Staff Pix radio show.

Will Ingman

Porchlight by Neko Case

Whenever my mom asks me to queue up a song I think she’ll like, my first choice is almost always Neko Case. It’s practically foolproof - Case is, by her own admission, my mom’s favorite vocalist in the world (“THE. WORLD.”), and a full-sized poster from one of her shows hangs in the hallway of my childhood home, complete with two of her ticket stubs wedged into the bottom of the frame. The soft, swaying country rhythms that pepper Case’s six albums conjure up images of long drives through the East Texas countryside, and her warm, soulful singing sounds just like the crackling of our living room fireplace.

Sara O’Connell

3005 by Childish Gambino 

My senior year of high school my friends and I would violently jam to this song in the car. For me, the nostalgia is overpowering when this occasionally comes on in my shuffle. In this album, Gambino plays the part of a wealthy teen rapping through his struggles of loneliness and existentialism. While this is technically Gambino’s most depressing body of work, this song's beat and engineers just make you want to move. Regardless of how much time has passed, this song always takes me back to the back seat of my friend's Honda Civic. 

Sarah Fournell

Sunday Morning by The Velvet Underground 

This song reminds me of waking up to the sound of my dad’s footsteps and the smell of coffee. And of the feeling of the sea air on my face as I drive up the PCH with my windows down. Of twinkling lights shining through the windows and the crackle of the fireplace. It’s the warmth of being at home. 

Kate Mettetal 

Everything I Own by Bread 

Music has always defined my relationship with home. One of my most vivid childhood memories takes me back to perusing through hoards of 60’s and 70’s rock CDs during one of my dad and I’s weekly excursions to the For Your Entertainment (F.Y.E.) store at our local mall, where I stumbled across a discography box set for a band called Bread. As one of my dad’s favorite groups, he purchased the set without hesitation and, nearly 13-years later, Bread’s Baby I’m-a Want You (1972) album remains the soundtrack to my family’s Saturday morning routine. “Everything I Own” has long been my favorite Bread song and now, as I grow older and the physical distance between my home and me grows too, the song reminds me of the transience of simple family traditions that I, at points in my life, didn’t appreciate enough. “Everything I Own” is the smell of Papa Nicholas coffee, the taste of my dad’s biscuits and gravy, the crinkling of my mom’s Saturday morning sales ads, and sounds like the comforting familiarity of home.

Karenna Umscheid

Always Remember Us This Way by Lady Gaga

My dad and I always sing this song in the car together. We love the 2018 film A Star is Born, both of us big fans of Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper. I can envision the summertime golden glow I’d feel in the car when I hear this, the slow farmland dotted with cows and dust devils as we venture back to Portland from a rock-climbing excursion in Bend, Oregon. It’s the perfect tune to lay your head on the window of the car and doze off, the streets melting away into the June daylight, enjoying the fullness of the sun before the entire state returns to rain in the fall.

David Shird

400 Lux by Lorde

Leaving the city is never easy for me, especially, when the suburbs are what I call home. When all the houses are cardboard cutouts of each other, one slowly begins to lose their mind. Lorde made this song as an anthem to the kids dying the suburbs. It reminds of all the mischief me and friends would get into after everything closed at 9pm. Zooming through the empty country roads, laying in the bed of the boy I had a crush on, or eating gross gas station food (the only thing that stayed open late in my town). Being home to me is reliving those memories with the friends I’ve left behind. The suburbs isn’t all doom and gloom when you have a few cool people to vibe out with. 

Maura Cowan

California by Joni Mitchell

My hometown of Oakland, California is 3,000 excruciating miles from Boston, and I never feel those miles so deeply as I do around the holidays. Distance and dollars are keeping me from the West Coast this November– I’ll be having a Brooklyn Thanksgiving with my friend, celebrating the family I have built out here at school. But when the Northeast chill bites a little too hard and I start to ache thinking of sunny winters, I turn on Blue and let Mitchell’s meandering vocals and storybook lyricism take me away. It reminds me –and my sweet California– that I am, eventually, coming home.

Andrew Johnson

Honky Cat by Elton John

When I travel home I always have to make two stops, one in Ann Arbor MI, and the other in Zionsville IN. Ann Arbor and Zionsville are nothing like each other, but when I listen to Honky Cat both places seem identical and feel like home. Honky Cat tells the story of a kid who lived in the sticks and tried to adventure into the city only to be rebuked by it. The sound has a country brass feeling to it that feels like a mix of living in the countryside and heart of the city. While the song does not represent how I feel, I understand it and I like the song.

Lily Hartenstein 

My Girls by Animal Collective

I used to say that I would rather die than romanticize my high school years (I’ve always been dramatic), but then I met the people who came to define what love is to me. It was nothing short of transformational, to fall so deeply in love with people who cared for me right back; my understanding of time was shattered as I felt not only our budding friendship in its moment, but the weight of the history it would grow to hold. Our yearly pilgrimage home means that we all share the same space again, comparing our growth and relishing the constant of our comfort together, and it makes the holidays all the more sweet. “My Girls” is a song that carries the same anticipation I feel as my airplane lands in SJC, dripping with both the excitement and calm that comes with a lifetime love. Noah Lennox wrote it for his daughter and wife, but of course it makes me think about my girls (and guy, love you forever Imran, sorry you’re stuck with us). 

Harry Bates

Aquarius - From Hair by Ronnie Dyson

I escaped north last weekend, and this song shuffled on as my Boston Express bus crossed over into New Hampshire. Without any hesitation, I fell right into the rhythm and vibe of “Aquarius.” It reminded me of home; of the gorgeous meadows, beautiful people, comfortable scenes, and fresh air. It was just after sundown, so I got to see this extravagant silhouette of pines and oaks against a darkening sky. There’s this connection to the natural world back home that seems somewhat missing in Boston, but, in that moment, I felt at one again with the norms of the place I love most. It was the homecoming that I so desperately needed, and, for that, I am so grateful. Peace to my fellow 603-ers!

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