Home is Wherever I'm With You

Driving with my dad. Lost in the woods.
I turned on the radio, and Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros came on. Home. This would have been totally normal. Home is a good song. I would have listened to it while semi-panicking about being lost in the woods.
But instead, I turned to my dad.
"This is that band you really like!"


My father likes Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros.
He's not a hippie. He's not a hipster. He doesn't try to act young- quite the opposite in fact. But he really likes Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros. Granted, he's only heard Home and Janglin, as far as I know. For all I know, he could have a secret stash of all things Edward Sharpe at his office.

I fully understand why, though. It's the nostalgia their music brings back. I remember when my dad first heard Home, he said that it sounded like old country music. It does. The more I listen to it, the more I find that they draw on music from the past.

The casual-ness reminds me of the Rolling Stones (I'm pretty sure that members of both bands are on some kind of illegal substance), or the Beatles on the Black Album. It was casual; it was fun. The bands of their time seemed to want to make music to satisfy their passion. Go here (click here). Just look at what comes up. They are the hippies from my dad's generation. They totally could run with Ken Kesey & The Merry Pranksters (who were the ultimate tripping hippies).

I think that when my dad listens to Edward Sharp & The Magnetic Zeros, it gives him a pathway to relate to the culture of my generation. We listen to them, and so can he. I feel as though they have created a really strong bridge between my dad's stack of records in the living room to my iTunes library.

I like them. I feel as though if I had never heard them before, I couldn't guess who's generation they came from. They're taking music back to simplicity. Back to where it was a group of people in a room with guitars and cowbells and washboards, creating wonderful sounds.

I think I know what I'm getting my dad for Christmas.
They sell a Vinyl LP on their website.
-Natalie