When a Foo Fighters song came up as today’s random iTunes selection, I just assumed it would be loud. I’m a big fan of Dave Grohl, but only an occasional fan of his band because of the heaviness of their sound.
But ‘Home,’ the final track on the band’s 2007 album Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, turned out to be something very different, a delicate piano ballad about the longing for a place to be at peace.
Random iTunes Weekends often serve as a reminder of how quickly time passes. Today’s selection is a perfect example.
I still think of Josh Rouse as a recent discovery, but I just realized that Nashville — the album that caught my attention as a new release — came out 11 years ago. Rouse’s debut, Dressed Up Like Nebraska, was released in 1998, nearly two decades ago, making him a grizzled veteran.
‘Home’ is a track from Tim McGraw’s great album, Tim McGraw and the Dancehall Doctors. Just about every song on this album is a winner.
The beginning of this song has always struck me as very similar to the opening notes of Elvis Costello’s ‘You Bowed Down.’ You can compare for yourself here.
I doubt the composers of this song copied Costello, and the notes aren’t exact anyway, but it has always distracted me.
Josh Rouse’s second album, Home, was released in 2000 and basically picked up where Dressed Up Like Nebraska left off. Rouse was born in Nebraska, incidentally, a distinction he shares with fellow pop tunesmiths Elliott Smith, Conor Oberst and Matthew Sweet. Must be something in the water of the Great Plains.
Home has a more polished sound than Rouse’s debut and introduces horns and strings into the mix. But it’s otherwise not much of a departure… more solid, mostly acoustic pop songs.
Meet Me In Montauk 