You must be living under a rock of Gaga glitter, Nicki Minaj's pussy on your sideburns, and Drake pop culture references if you've missed the coming of the hipster national anthem, Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zero's folk ensamble love song "Home". With it's tamborines, whistles, and charming lyrics ("Alabama, Arkansas, I do love my ma 'n paw, but not the way that I do love you....home, let me go home. Home is wherever I'm with you.) the song is an instant sing-a-long sensation. But it's more than just that. "Home" hits the hearts of anyone who hears it. I must confess, after hearing a cover at a TSW party in Brooklyn, I ran all the way to the L train back to manhattan and the one I love, whistling till the doorstep. Lovers or friends, folks love to dance to the tune, kick their fake cowboy boots, and pretend their somewhere sunny. The music video embodies this feeling. Shot somewhere in Texas or California or Arizona or some...deserty like place, the official music video feels like Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde, glorifying the journeys of two runaway youths in love and their gang of vagabond-like young friends. Watch it and try not to get captivated by its grainy footage, western allusions, and sunny skies that make us want to get up and go...some place....home? No, not that.
The truth is, "Home" speaks to the young, mustached, and feathered haired misfits of today because it and its accompanying video are the only home these kids know. Home is wherever a loved one is, or somewhere in the middle of nowhere and that speaks to the aimlessness (or abandonment?) of a youth culture that seems to find residence only within itself (and the L line).
Hipsters and the young have an obsession with living in the past, and I'm not talking about rocking gold chains like it was 1980. I'm talking all the way down to lifestyle and image quality. We kids of the late 80s to early 90s have grown up with only the baby boomer's memories of the 60's and 70's and our parents non-stop references to the good old days when things were just, for whatever reason, better. It's actually kind of sad. It's like we're always trying to live up to something. Our musicians are trying to be the new Jim Morrison's or Hendrixes, our activists aim to fall somewhere in between MLK and La Raza but fail miserably, while our fashionistas wear anything that was either made in 2010 to look like it came from 1968 or was made in 1968 and cost $210. And any relics from that era are quickly gobbled up into the vintage-culture machine and spit out in a way that some how retains its old soul ( see the new Gil Scott-Heron album, very appropriately called "I'm new here" on XL Recordings or Bobby Womack's and Lou Reed's guest appearances on the Gorillaz's new project Plastic Beach). Meanwhile, we squeemishly run away from anything that is too present, jadedly seeking adventures in cultural memories that we ourselves are too young to have even watched someone else experience.
I'm not sure what our problem is, or if we have run out of vision and creativity other than this kitsch-like rehash--but I do know that some great stuff is coming out of it. And holy moly oh me oh my, this song is the tip of the iceberg.
la, la, la, la take me home.
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