Hometowns and Nostalgia: "Turning Home" by David Nail

          Since I’m sure you are innately interested, I’ll give you a short life bio of myself.  I know, just what you wanted.  I moved to Illinois when I was six and lived there until my family moved to North Carolina this past summer.  I was sixteen.  Now you may be thinking of how difficult it must have been for me to be uprooted right in the middle of high school and move to a state in which I know absolutely no one and start living an entirely new life.  If this is what you’re thinking you'd be absolutely… wrong.  You’d be completely wrong.  Sorry.

            Ever since I was little I’ve wanted to move to the South, specifically North Carolina (this probably sprang from the unhealthy amount of Nicholas Sparks books I devoured as a kid) and after my sophomore year my family decided to make the move.  A lot of people don’t understand why we would want to move from the great city of Chicago to the quaint town of Mooresville, NC.  Well, I’ll let you in on a little secret about Chicago.  It’s cold.  Ok, that’s not really a secret but Chicago is ridiculously cold and gray for ¾ of the year.   We put up with it for 10 years, but finally we couldn’t take it anymore.  So, much to my excitement, we packed up our lives and headed to the South.

                              Pretty much what I looked like the whole drive down.

I have no regrets about moving but I’d be lying (and a heartless monster) if I said I didn’t miss my friends from Chicago.  I’ve known them for as long as I can remember and their influence has shaped me into the person I am today.  I came across David Nail’s Grammy nominated song “Turning Home” shortly after we left Illinois and the lyrics really moved me.   The person in the song has moved away from home but constantly reminisces about the people who impacted his life and all of the fun he had while growing up.  The memories that he sings of, such as passing family owned stores and going to gas stations, are very simple and are probably things that he never gave a second thought to while growing up.  Yet, after being away for a while he thinks of these things fondly, with a sense of nostalgia.  This is something that really spoke to me. 

David nails the vocals of this song  (Lame puns FTW) and he sings with such conviction and passion.  I love how the intensity of the song builds with every verse until it comes to a dramatic conclusion with “I don’t know no love like the first love/when I think about the best times/she’s the one I think of”.  Ahh so, so good. 

    

        

What did y'all think of the song?  Did it hit home for anyone?   Let me know!