We Used To Call This Home

Hey there!  It’s time to bask in our nostalgia!  The good.  The bad.  But mostly the good, we can leave out the bad parts!  I’m sending you a free heavy rock song I wrote called We Used To Call This Home.  You can stream or download the song and read the story behind the music below!

Quick hits:

• Theme:  Nostalgia, leaving home, college antics
• Influences:  At the time I was listening to the Foo Fighters album Echoes, Silence Patience Grace, Avenged Sevenfold and Weezer’s Red Album.
• Weird facts:  When I was recording this song, my friend’s beagle was downstairs.  I didn’t know he was there and when I started playing the drums he howled like he was dying.  I wish I had kept that take… it would have added some interesting background noises.  I didn’t like the song when I was writing it because for some reason I thought the guitar parts were unoriginal.  After I finished recording it, I loved it.  I don’t know what my problem was!

Download The Song Here For Free:  We-Used-To-Call-This-Home.mp3

Behind The Song:

I remember when my roommate threw an old TV out the window of my second-story bedroom and it nearly flattened the mail lady.  Ah, college… a time full of crazy memories.  In another universe that moment could have turned tragic but for now it will be remembered as a highlight of the best season of my life.  Guitars, friends, late night jam sessions, and a house that could fall apart at any moment.

Memories are a blessing and a curse.  Nostalgia can hit you in the face like a bag of bricks.  We try to relive the best memories in our minds as if we believe we could turn back time if we just think hard enough.  Does that sound like you too?

We Used To Call This Home is a heavy, nostalgic modern rock song about remembering the best times in our lives.  Sometimes we don’t even know how great a season of life is until much later.  That’s what happened to me.  Let’s take a closer look at the ridiculous memories behind this song.

For me, one of my favorite seasons was living in my college with three of my friends.  It was also the beginning of Vandarth.  We lived in one of the oldest houses in West Lafayette where we attended school at Purdue University.  This house had literally been moved from one zip code to another.  How did they move it?  They moved the house by rolling it down the street on logs.  Do you know what that does to a house?  The result left it tilted at an angle.  The floors upstairs were tilted.  Walking down the hallway was like trying to walk through a spiral tunnel.  A hole was opening up in the ceiling below the upstairs shower.  We weren’t sure if we were going to fall through the floor every time we took a shower.  Sometimes I thought, “How the heck did this house pass an inspection?”  Still, if I could, I would buy that house in a heartbeat.  Why?  Memories.  Nostalgia.

We Used To Call This Home is about the longing I feel inside to relive that season of life in that old house.  What made that season of life so great for me? Was it the TV incident?  Maybe it was the hazards of the house.  Maybe it was the late-night jam sessions.  We never knew if the neighborhood girls would wander in for a listen or if the cops would walk in to shut us down.  Then one day I had to move out.  For better or worse, life is a moving train that can’t be stopped.  Sometimes I wish I could figure out how to hit the brakes.  Other times I wish I could speed it up.

We didn’t know what we had until it was gone.  That’s kind of a downer way to think about it right?  Maybe… or, it can give us something to shoot for in the future.  My hope is that the best days are not over.  I’d like to think we can find more.  Maybe we can even “make” more.  Yeah, it’s tough for me to remember that sometimes, but deep down I know it’s true.  So let’s throw some more TV’s off of the balcony and make ridiculous memories.  Just try not to kill the mail lady… Long live nostalgia!

Sincerely,

Nathan (aka Vandarth)

We Used To Call This Home originally appeared on Vandarth’s album The Essentials.

Want more new rock music from Vandarth?  Click here to check out his latest album Space Coffin!

Click to preview the new album Space Coffin!