(No?) Direction Home

I turned 26 the other day, and as with every birthday had some time to reflect on life. I normally don't like birthdays, but this time it was a very nice one. I have come to realize that the concept of "home" -finding it, building it, destroying it, rebuilding it, losing it, re-finding it, I am not sure- has become the defining struggle/yearning/searching of my life currently. It makes me hopeful and pessimistic at the same time, that two of my favorite singer/song writers have written about "home" the same age as I am.

Scorsese's recollection of Dylan's wild beginnings is named "No Direction Home" for a reason. It's a reference to one of his signature recordings from that era, Like a Rolling Stone. The song is sung to a woman, who used to "let other people get her kicks for her," who "used to ride on the chrome horse with her diplomat, who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat" and after all this glory has to "go scrounging for her next meal" on the streets. Most of the Dylanite's think this song is written to a certain member of Andy Warhol's Factory, with which Dylan was associated for a while. But I, and some other Dylanite's, take it as a song of self reflection, in which Dylan warns himself, about not finding a place and a person to call home:

"How does it feel
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?"



Connon Oberst on the otherside gives me hope:



"But I realize that I need you
And I wondered if I could come home..."