One and Only...
I can't even begin to tell you how happy I am that I sold my house almost a year ago. Home ownership just wasn't for me.
I wrote a song about it. It's called One and Only Home.
Shortly after moving into my apartment and sitting down with lawyers and the buyer, I started writing about what was going through my mind as it pertained to moving out of the home that I had lived in for most of my life. There were a lot of thoughts and feelings and it didn't come to a cohesive conclusion and, thus, wasn't a song.
One idea that I had jotted down stuck with me. It was that of a gingerbread house that didn't taste good. I had written about trying to build a gingerbread house with ingredients that made me sick, which was a great metaphor for my experience owning a home.
This became the first verse.
The second verse is an inside joke in a way. You see, I had married a former pageant girl who was very concerned with how the home looked. Everything had to be perfect and she wanted to spend all of our money on making it that way. It was her "dream house," in a way, and I wasn't too keen on the idea that looks were everything. Keeping everything up to a standard of beauty was a "nightmare." I call her Barbie in the song and refer to her "plastic things," in the song. I love this verse.
The third verse of the song reflects my feelings on the rich and the hoarding of things behind protected gates. The "mansion on the ocean" is a place that I dream about living because I love the ocean. But, there are steel gates surrounding it and I'm not allowed in.
I pull all of these thoughts about places where I don't fit in or am not allowed in together in the chorus, which repeats three times in the song.
I've been looking for a place to belong.
Every place that I've gone has been wrong.
The second part of the chorus is where the title of the song comes from. There is an old adage about songwriting that says you should write about love, because it is a universal feeling. I don't do this often, but when I'm stuck with where to go next, this adage creeps in and gives me some direction. That happened, somewhat, in the case of One and Only Home. The second part of the chorus takes the first half of the chorus (looking for a home) and resolves it by asking,
Please tell me that you don't want me to go and I won't.
You're my one and only... home.
It's not so much a feeling of love. Rather, it's the desire to have a home. The "you" that the narrator of the song (me) is referring to is kind of vague. I suppose I'm singing to a place... or an idea: the idea of what home is.
Because I (the narrator in the song) have tried to live in so many different places, but hasn't fit in, he's looking for the idea of home. What I'm trying to say is, a house is a thing, but a home is more like a feeling.
That feeling of home is one that I currently don't have. And I've been looking for it.
I lived in a gingerbread house.
Sticky, candy coated walls.
These ingredients made me sick.
I ain't got a sweet tooth after all.
Then I met her in the summer.
This buxom blonde beauty queen.
Barbie's dream house was a nightmare to me.
I can't sleep on plastic things.
I've been looking for a place to belong.
Every place that I've gone has been wrong.
Please tell me that you don't want me to go and I won't.
You're my one and only... home.
There's a mansion on the ocean
where I thought I would like to live.
Those steel gates are unwelcoming things.
No one will ever let me in.
I've been looking for a place to belong.
Every place that I've gone has been wrong.
Please tell me that you don't want me to go and I won't.
You're my one and only... home.
I wrote a song about it. It's called One and Only Home.
Shortly after moving into my apartment and sitting down with lawyers and the buyer, I started writing about what was going through my mind as it pertained to moving out of the home that I had lived in for most of my life. There were a lot of thoughts and feelings and it didn't come to a cohesive conclusion and, thus, wasn't a song.
One idea that I had jotted down stuck with me. It was that of a gingerbread house that didn't taste good. I had written about trying to build a gingerbread house with ingredients that made me sick, which was a great metaphor for my experience owning a home.
This became the first verse.
The second verse is an inside joke in a way. You see, I had married a former pageant girl who was very concerned with how the home looked. Everything had to be perfect and she wanted to spend all of our money on making it that way. It was her "dream house," in a way, and I wasn't too keen on the idea that looks were everything. Keeping everything up to a standard of beauty was a "nightmare." I call her Barbie in the song and refer to her "plastic things," in the song. I love this verse.
The third verse of the song reflects my feelings on the rich and the hoarding of things behind protected gates. The "mansion on the ocean" is a place that I dream about living because I love the ocean. But, there are steel gates surrounding it and I'm not allowed in.
I pull all of these thoughts about places where I don't fit in or am not allowed in together in the chorus, which repeats three times in the song.
I've been looking for a place to belong.
Every place that I've gone has been wrong.
The second part of the chorus is where the title of the song comes from. There is an old adage about songwriting that says you should write about love, because it is a universal feeling. I don't do this often, but when I'm stuck with where to go next, this adage creeps in and gives me some direction. That happened, somewhat, in the case of One and Only Home. The second part of the chorus takes the first half of the chorus (looking for a home) and resolves it by asking,
Please tell me that you don't want me to go and I won't.
You're my one and only... home.
It's not so much a feeling of love. Rather, it's the desire to have a home. The "you" that the narrator of the song (me) is referring to is kind of vague. I suppose I'm singing to a place... or an idea: the idea of what home is.
Because I (the narrator in the song) have tried to live in so many different places, but hasn't fit in, he's looking for the idea of home. What I'm trying to say is, a house is a thing, but a home is more like a feeling.
That feeling of home is one that I currently don't have. And I've been looking for it.
I lived in a gingerbread house.
Sticky, candy coated walls.
These ingredients made me sick.
I ain't got a sweet tooth after all.
Then I met her in the summer.
This buxom blonde beauty queen.
Barbie's dream house was a nightmare to me.
I can't sleep on plastic things.
I've been looking for a place to belong.
Every place that I've gone has been wrong.
Please tell me that you don't want me to go and I won't.
You're my one and only... home.
There's a mansion on the ocean
where I thought I would like to live.
Those steel gates are unwelcoming things.
No one will ever let me in.
I've been looking for a place to belong.
Every place that I've gone has been wrong.
Please tell me that you don't want me to go and I won't.
You're my one and only... home.