Larry Gatlin and the Longing for Home
I found a vinyl of Larry Gatlin’s Greatest Hits at a vintage shop in Chattanooga, Tennessee recently. I bought it knowing the nostalgia it would bring back. Larry Gatlin is one of my dad’s favorite musicians and my childhood was filled with the music of his CDs. I brought it home and placed it on the record player, and as it crackled to life I was filled with the memories of our family’s second house, where we had lived the longest. Hearing those familiar songs immediately brought me back to laying on the carpet in our living room. In the evenings when we were all home and together in one room, my mom working on her latest craft project, my dad reading and my sister on the computer or doing homework, the Gatlin Brothers’ music kept us company.
My life has changed so much since then and my dad is no longer part of that picture, but when I play this vinyl, it brings me back to naive and ignorant days when our lives felt perfect and whole. It was the way that I thought life was supposed to look like. Of course, there were things going on that weren’t right, and now it’s refreshing not walking on eggshells around the house because of my dad. But those moments of laying on the carpet with the old, obnoxious floral print couch, the maroon armchair and the house always smelling like cinnamon, felt like peace.
It’s strange how hearing music can take you back to what feels like another lifetime, one you almost forgot even existed. It’s also magical how you can listen to a song and it can transport you back to a different home and a different version of you.
My TCK record collection is an eclectic mix of Larry Gatlin, Selena Quintanilla, Sufjan Stevens, Prince, Billy Joel, Bon Iver and more. The song Piel Canela conjures images of my sister in traditional Costa Rican dress, dancing while it plays. When I hear Suicide Saturday play on my Hippo Campus record, I begin to reminisce about my cousins and I seeing their friends perform this song at a small show in St. Paul, Minnesota back before the band was famous, back when they were just guys who worked at the grocery store.
My heart lives in different places and comes back to me when a familiar song plays from one home or another. My homesickness is soothed by music and food from the place I long for most. Sometimes the home I long for is the one in Minnesota when my family was together in our little house on the cul de sac, near lilac bushes, with Larry Gatlin playing in the background.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ONE OF OUR FAVE TCK WRITERS, PAUL KENNEDY!