Brucemas 2.11

[inlovewithnight]

Today, my favorite song from Magic. "Long Walk Home."

I talked about this song a little bit the other day in conjuction to "Highway Patrolman," so this post won't get into all that.

Comments

[likeadeuce]

I hadn't thought about it until reading this post, but it's really interesting that it's a "long walk home." Considering how often Bruce writes about journeying by vehicle -- even "My Hometown" is explicitly about riding in a car through the streets of a (very similar) town. The idea of actually "walking" home suggests either (1) there's no one willing -- or no one left -- to give you a lift or (2) you've deliberately chosen a more demanding -- and, literally, longer -- form of travel, either as a penance, or to give yourself time to work something out. I'm not sure where I'm going with this -- or whether it supports a particular reading of the song but it is interesting. Particularly, maybe, as a counterpoint to "Last to Die," on the same album, where the narrator is apparently running away, in a hurry, in a car -- versus this song, where he's slowly/deliberately walking toward . . .what? We're not sure

[byrneout]

He put out the political reading to introduce this at the second L.A. 'Magic' show, so we can safely chuck that in the "intentional" bin. Which makes it, for my money, the best political song on 'Magic.' I don't like my political songs the obvious way [which meant 'Last to Die' was my designated bathroom-and-beer-line break].

[nolivingman]

The idea that summer smells like green makes me happy.

Me too.

This is such a hopeful song to me; in certain hormonal moods it makes me cry with some kind of nostalgia thing that I can't even describe. It's a long walk home, yes, but there is a home, and you can get there again and it'll be just what you need. We can get America back, if you take the political thing.

[vampirespider]

We're just walking along, alone, hoping at some point we'll reach our destination and someone waited up for us anyway

YES! That's it, that's what the song is, and since it's been stuck in my head since Sunday and I haven't been able to articulate why - thank you for that.