Linda Ronstadt recording
Chantal Kreviazuk recording
Chantal Kreviazuk recording
When I left home to go to college I never imagined that there would be any other place that I would call home.
I grew up in Mercer Island, Washington, which is a small suburb of Seattle that lies in the middle of Lake Washington. There's a tradition in my family of moving away from home. My mother and father came to America from Taiwan, my brother went to college at New York University and it only seemed to make sense that I would take opportunity to explore another part of the country. My brother went to a great American city so I chose Chicago to be the city that I would explore and I applied and got accepted to Northwestern University.
My freshmen year, I missed home a lot. I met some great people through Marching Band and my parents visited as much as they could but it was hard. I remember some nights feeling lonely and lost. My home seemed so far away and at times it seemed to physically hurt how much I wanted to feel the comfort of being at home. At those times, I would think about my parents coming over to a country in which they didn't even know the language, leaving all their family and friends and I would tell myself, if they could handle that, then I can make it at Northwestern.
As time went on, I joined a fraternity and lived in a frat house for three years. Slowly without thinking about it, I noticed that I would refer to my dorm room as "home." Sometimes people would ask if I was talking about my "home, home" which referred to my home in Washington or my "home" which was my dorm room. I don't remember the moment when I started thinking about my fraternity house as my home and when that happened I didn't seem to miss my "home, home" as much.
Maybe it was because I had made great friends and knew the town of Evanston and Chicago better, but I missed home less and less as my years at Northwestern progressed. I found that this happened again when my wife and I moved in together to Downers Grove another suburb of Chicago. When we first moved there I found myself missing home but as I began to know the town and feel comfortable in my surroundings I started calling it home and missing home less as the time passed.
After two years in Downers Grove, my wife and I moved back to Evanston and somehow our condominium felt like home quickly. I had lived in that same condominium during graduate school but something while Diana was finishing up her undergraduate degree at Northwestern but it never really felt like home during that time.
What my made condo feel like home so quickly? What was it that turned my Downers Grove apartment, my fraternity house and the house in Mercer Island a home? Is it about the building itself, the surroundings or is it something closer to the heart? Maybe the answer to this questions lies in “Feels Like Home” by Randy Newman.
In 1993, Randy Newman, most known for the music he composed for the Pixar films Toy Story and Monsters Inc. presented a musical he composed based on the story of Faust by Goethe and also utilized elements from Milton's Paradise Lost. The story is based in modern day with God and the Devil fighting for the soul of a University of Notre Dame student Henry Faust. The character of Martha who is trying to trick the Devil sings “Feels Like Home.” The setting and purpose of the song is to deceive but the emotional truth describing how people can bring us to the feeling of home is intimate, honest and genuine.
This song is about intangibles. Emotions that we can’t describe in words, so instead of trying to explain these emotions, Newman illustrates specific moments and situations that helps us feel theses magical and indescribable moments.
The song begins describing the emotional meaning that physical aspects can bring. Newman describes “something” in the eyes that makes him want to lose himself in his love’s arms. He hears something in her voice that touches his heart that makes him feel an emotion that he hopes will last forever. It has been said that love songs make sense when you finally fall in love and unless you have seen and heard that “something” that is being described it’s impossible to really know what Newman is singing about.
It is all of this that Newman sings “Feels Like Home.” This is a feeling of comfort, warmth and being safe. It is something that we see in each other eyes and feel in each other’s presence. It’s in our pain and in our happiness, which we work to express to each other. Though it is impossible to completely understand each other’s emotions through this struggle, we begin to better understand each other and even more so ourselves.
I don’t think home is just a building and I don’t think it’s just the people. It’s the joy in our lives, the struggle in the dark and a place in our heart. Home is a feeling that represents the best parts of ourselves and this feeling reminds us that no matter how far we travel, home will always be with us.
"Home is the one place in all this world where hearts are sure of each other. It is the place of confidence. It is the place where we tear off that mask of guarded and suspicious coldness which the world forces us to wear in self-defense, and where we pour out the unreserved communications of full and confiding hearts. It is the spot where expressions of tenderness gush out without any sensation of awkwardness and without any dread of ridicule."
~Frederick W. Robertson
I grew up in Mercer Island, Washington, which is a small suburb of Seattle that lies in the middle of Lake Washington. There's a tradition in my family of moving away from home. My mother and father came to America from Taiwan, my brother went to college at New York University and it only seemed to make sense that I would take opportunity to explore another part of the country. My brother went to a great American city so I chose Chicago to be the city that I would explore and I applied and got accepted to Northwestern University.
My freshmen year, I missed home a lot. I met some great people through Marching Band and my parents visited as much as they could but it was hard. I remember some nights feeling lonely and lost. My home seemed so far away and at times it seemed to physically hurt how much I wanted to feel the comfort of being at home. At those times, I would think about my parents coming over to a country in which they didn't even know the language, leaving all their family and friends and I would tell myself, if they could handle that, then I can make it at Northwestern.
As time went on, I joined a fraternity and lived in a frat house for three years. Slowly without thinking about it, I noticed that I would refer to my dorm room as "home." Sometimes people would ask if I was talking about my "home, home" which referred to my home in Washington or my "home" which was my dorm room. I don't remember the moment when I started thinking about my fraternity house as my home and when that happened I didn't seem to miss my "home, home" as much.
Maybe it was because I had made great friends and knew the town of Evanston and Chicago better, but I missed home less and less as my years at Northwestern progressed. I found that this happened again when my wife and I moved in together to Downers Grove another suburb of Chicago. When we first moved there I found myself missing home but as I began to know the town and feel comfortable in my surroundings I started calling it home and missing home less as the time passed.
After two years in Downers Grove, my wife and I moved back to Evanston and somehow our condominium felt like home quickly. I had lived in that same condominium during graduate school but something while Diana was finishing up her undergraduate degree at Northwestern but it never really felt like home during that time.
What my made condo feel like home so quickly? What was it that turned my Downers Grove apartment, my fraternity house and the house in Mercer Island a home? Is it about the building itself, the surroundings or is it something closer to the heart? Maybe the answer to this questions lies in “Feels Like Home” by Randy Newman.
In 1993, Randy Newman, most known for the music he composed for the Pixar films Toy Story and Monsters Inc. presented a musical he composed based on the story of Faust by Goethe and also utilized elements from Milton's Paradise Lost. The story is based in modern day with God and the Devil fighting for the soul of a University of Notre Dame student Henry Faust. The character of Martha who is trying to trick the Devil sings “Feels Like Home.” The setting and purpose of the song is to deceive but the emotional truth describing how people can bring us to the feeling of home is intimate, honest and genuine.
This song is about intangibles. Emotions that we can’t describe in words, so instead of trying to explain these emotions, Newman illustrates specific moments and situations that helps us feel theses magical and indescribable moments.
The song begins describing the emotional meaning that physical aspects can bring. Newman describes “something” in the eyes that makes him want to lose himself in his love’s arms. He hears something in her voice that touches his heart that makes him feel an emotion that he hopes will last forever. It has been said that love songs make sense when you finally fall in love and unless you have seen and heard that “something” that is being described it’s impossible to really know what Newman is singing about.
It is all of this that Newman sings “Feels Like Home.” This is a feeling of comfort, warmth and being safe. It is something that we see in each other eyes and feel in each other’s presence. It’s in our pain and in our happiness, which we work to express to each other. Though it is impossible to completely understand each other’s emotions through this struggle, we begin to better understand each other and even more so ourselves.
I don’t think home is just a building and I don’t think it’s just the people. It’s the joy in our lives, the struggle in the dark and a place in our heart. Home is a feeling that represents the best parts of ourselves and this feeling reminds us that no matter how far we travel, home will always be with us.
"Home is the one place in all this world where hearts are sure of each other. It is the place of confidence. It is the place where we tear off that mask of guarded and suspicious coldness which the world forces us to wear in self-defense, and where we pour out the unreserved communications of full and confiding hearts. It is the spot where expressions of tenderness gush out without any sensation of awkwardness and without any dread of ridicule."
~Frederick W. Robertson
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