Although John Denver’s song isn’t in our top ten lists, it perfectly encapsulates our longing for home. America has an add relationship to home. Except for the Native Americans, everyone who came to America, was for at least some time, homeless. And for the Native American’s we forced them off their lands, so in a way we were all on the same field. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When people sing about home, they\u2019re singing about a universal need, but one framed by their specific stories and histories. And home is a tricky concept to pin down. Is it a physical place? A sense of safety? The concept of belonging? Three narratives appear in the top songs of the 1870s, showing contrasting views of what home could be. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In \u201cSwing Low, Sweet Chariot\u201d<\/strong> heaven is our home. One of the most well known African-American Gospel songs, it was composed in the1860s by Wallace and Minerva Willis, and is still a staple today, one with astonishing power. Covered by everyone, from the Frisk SIngers to Dolly Parton to the Grateful Dead, it disturbed the Nazi\u2019s so much that it was added to a list of “undesired and harmful” musical works in 1939.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMy Western Home<\/strong>\u201d places home in the open plains of the midwest. Written in 1872\/3 by Dr. Brewster M. Higley, a homesteader in Kansas, it eventually evolved into what we now know as \u201cHome on the Range\u201d. It became the official state song of Kansas in 1947 and in 2010 was included in the Top 100 western songs of all time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ll Take You Home Again Kathleen<\/strong>\u201d offers a nostalgic view of home far away. Often assumed to be an Irish song, it was written by a German-American, Thomas Paine Westendorf, in the 1870s. Whether it was the use of a common Irish name of the time, or the narrative, it became embedded in Irish-American culture and is still a favorite of Irish (and all) tenors today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n