After spending a weekend in Nashville’s ticky-tacky-box condos, drab architecture, and woeful lack of pedestrian infrastructure, I was ready to get back to my wife and pup in New York. As eager as I was to get back, I was not at all prepared for the surge of elation I felt upon seeing mile after mile after mile of urban sprawl during the descent, lights glittering like a millions of tiny jewels: was I just as excited to be in New York City as I was to return to my little family? (Yes.) But what happens when home doesn’t feel like home anymore? R McClure & The Tall Shadows treat that alienation with the epic approach it deserved on “when i get back home to you.”
Home is as much a person as it is a place in this song, which climbs the heights of a countrypolitan opera. Honing in on the Nashville Sound with a soaring string section, McClure’s soft vocals counterbalance the song’s drama — a veritable record scratch in a song that is as much about elation as it is regret. For anyone who no longer recognizes their hometown, or is worried they can no longer afford to say, “when i get back home” is the country song you need.