Phoenix Rivers by Phoenix Rivers

It’s a dangerous thing to claim that this pandemic has “taught” us anything. This suggests that we are capable of radical changes, that our lives will never be the same, that we’ve turned some corner and now we’ll do things differently. I don’t believe any of that. What I do believe is that there’s a few little things that I’ve learned to appreciate (even more).
I’ve always loved the word “home”. I’ve been writing songs for about 15 years now, and it’s striking how often it pops up in my lyrics. It’s just the strongest word I know. This past year, most of us have been spending more time at home than maybe they would have liked. But for me personally, having been, for lack of a better word, kind of homeless for a few years, or living in places that haven’t felt like home, it has never felt like punishment. I would never claim to have been homeless exactly, but I think I know how it might feel (and Lord knows I’ve definitely looked the part). I know the feeling of sleeping on other people’s couches, I know what it’s like to collect your mail from someone else’s address, I know the feelings of guilt that accompany the gratitude of someone giving you their apartment for the week, or even a night, I know what it’s like not be able to make rent, and I know how it feels to admit to your landlord that you won’t be able to make rent for a while. Conversely, I know the sheer joy that comes with being handed a key, the joy of staring out of a window knowing that the door won’t magically open by itself and that you’re not going to be the one to open it, the quiet almost weeping happiness that comes from stocking a fridge, from buying a plant, pots and pans, pillows, maybe even one of those signs that reads ‘HOME’, but refusing because you would never have to be told that it’s home. It just is. Without sharing too much about my personal life (and anyway, those of you who know, know anyway), to finally have a safe place, where I am loved and wanted, in spite of all my flaws, is the biggest gift anyone has ever given me. I can take another lockdown or months of curfew, I wouldn’t care. I love saying: I’m going home. It’s the most beautiful place on earth.

Having said that, the other pure joy that I’ve experienced this past year was getting into a rehearsal space (whenever possible), and churning out songs with a few friends. The fact that the world outside seemed to have stopped, that there was no possibility of playing in the foreseeable future, felt liberating. Just creating in a vacuum. Like something out of nothing. We just got together every week, set up, plugged in, and played. Right now, I would like nothing more than to get on a real stage, in front of real people, but at the time, a room in a basement in Leiden was all we needed. It was all we had anyway.

That’s what got me through this pandemic: friends willing to play old-fashioned rock and roll with me, and the luxury of saying: “Fuck it, I’m going home”. That’s what this song means to me. It may not seem like much, but the devil is in the details, and God is in the smallest things.

Tracklist

1.	Headed Home	3:00

Credits

released May 14, 2021

License

CC BY-NC-SA 3.0. See the Creative Commons website for details.