Bring You Home is a bragging song. Bragging is a complicated behavior. On the one hand, the ego seems to want to do it in order to influence how others see us. It’s a manipulative device used to reaffirm our self-worth. “Look how wonderful I am.” On the other hand, it’s socially taboo and so often counter productive. The other person is most often thinking “Look how pathetic you are.”
But we have a grand tradition of bragging. It is one of the staples of American folklore. Our beloved Tall Tales, like Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill, are stories built around exaggeration (bragging’s main ingredient.) It’s believed that these stories sprung from the bragging contests that served as entertainment for frontiersman around the campfire.
Bragging and bluster in the form of a song is also a cultural tradition. It crosses many genres: folk songs, cowboys songs, blues songs, etc. It serves as a culturally acceptable way of saying things we probably wouldn’t normally say. (Unless of course you happen to be a millionaire and president of the United States. Then all bets are off.)
I got the idea I wanted to write my own bragging song after singing someone else’s. I was playing the Steve Earle song, “Graveyard Shift” at an open mic in Cotati once. I found myself a little distracted by a couple of younger-hipper singer songwriters who were snickering in the audience. Yes, they were laughing at me. The incongruity of this fat old-fart singing: “I drive a Cadillac, rides just like a dream All the Pretty girls wanna ride with me. Cus I got what all the women want. I never say I do, when I really don’t.” Oh you whippersnappers think that’s funny? Think I’ll write one myself then. I’m gonna rub some of my own braggadocio in your face.
So Bring You Home is my way of participating in the grand tradition of folk bluster. I think most songs benefit from a little bit of “attitude”. It’s my way of bragging without the mess. Beats hell out of that other odiferous music business alternative. (called “self promotion”.) I still don’t have the stomach for that one.