Off To Chicago, Which Means I'll "Take The Long Way Home". Love Me Some Supertramp!

I forgot how bad the traffic can be in Chicago… I mean, it might be worse than LA.  Wow… We crawled from O’Hare… and I mean literally crawled.  Our driver seemed content to go slow whenever possible.  Not that there were too many opportunities to hit the gas on his Prius, but when there were… he did not take them.  Not at all.  Not one.  AAGGHH!

Since it’s a long way from home and I have yet to hit a blues club, I figured this was an appropriate song… and of course a great one.  And yes, I can play the harmonica part!

This comes from one of my all-time favorite records… ALL-TIME!!!

Supertramp – “Take The Long Way Home”

This is a Roger Hodgson solo version… could not find a full band video.  I definitely miss the harp… But it is still quite good.  Enjoy!

“So you think you’re a Romeo
Playing a part in a picture-show
Take the long way home
Take the long way home

Cause youre the joke of the neighborhood
Why should you care if you’re feeling good
Take the long way home
Take the long way home

But there are times that you feel you’re part of the scenery
All the greenery is comin’ down, boy
And then your wife seems to think you’re part of the
Furniture oh, its peculiar, she used to be so nice.

When lonely days turn to lonely nights
You take a trip to the city lights
And take the long way home
Take the long way home

You never see what you want to see
Forever playing to the gallery
You take the long way home
Take the long way home

And when you’re up on the stage, it’s so unbelievable,
Unforgettable, how they adore you,
But then your wife seems to think you’re losing your sanity,
Oh, calamity, is there no way out?

Does it feel that you life’s become a catastrophe?
Oh, it has to be for you to grow, boy.
When you look through the years and see what you could
Have been oh, what might have been,
If you had, had more time.

So when the day comes to settle down,
Who’s to blame if you’re not around?
You took the long way home
You took the long way home…”

From Wikipedia:

“Take the Long Way Home” is the fourth single and sixth track of Supertramp’s 1979 album Breakfast in America. It was the last song written for the album, being penned during the nine-month recording cycle.  It reached number 10 on the U.S. charts.”

I always saw the song a little ambiguous. It’s on two levels. I see ‘home’ as being internal and external. It’s kind of a play on words. Definitely part of the song is about the shallowness of success and getting caught up in a world and success and chasing, being popular, or whatever, is taking ‘the long way home’. Because I think ‘home’ in its deepest sense is inside, is being at peace with oneself. Again it’s ambiguous — ‘if you’re not around’ means… you’re dead or you couldn’t settle down — you couldn’t take it and you’re off looking for things that are more important. It’s a fun song! I remember having a lot of fun writing it but never really having a clear picture of it. It was more… often when I write songs, I go by gut instinct… the best lines come to me rather than me trying to think them up consciously and I just feel they’re right and I go with them whether I totally understand the meaning or not.

—Roger Hodgson, In the Studio with Redbeard for the making of Breakfast in America“

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