Table of Content
He has found that taking the long way home from whatever it is that he spends his day doing does give him some surcease from sorrow, when he can day dream, imagine he is living the life he had planned. And it delays finally arriving at home where facing his wife will destroy that fantasy. That song would have amounted to a bubblegum smacking transistor radio sing along if not for the harmonica playing of Rick Davis and all those other quiet geniuses happy to be buried silent in the group.
Not having any real answers to his problem he gets to enjoy their moment together - in the now. Not to worry about anything else. Making the day go on longer, by taking the long way home.
Other versions
Nowadays, we have the Supertramp camp saying Roger is stealing Supertramp songs for his use on tour. Roger wrote his songs and Rick Davies wrote his songs - it would be nice if the side could come to a reconciliation but it doesn't look promising. Anyway, enjoy the songs, they are amazing works of art. I had always imagine this song as being two guys friends whom decided to get away from home to do some activity together. The narrative of the song would by his friend who knows him well, tries to console him, as best as a guy could.
Especially with words that can be interpret as a person being loved by many who dont really him, and enjoyed the crowd's praises. Outside of that arena he has to deal with the realities of home life and his harshest critics. Too long being in one place doing the same thing for years makes one wonder if you could have been someone other than yourself - a much better you. Really don't like this song or the entire album. They did much better in previous albums.
Supertramp, " Breakfast in America " Drum Cover
In my opinion it’s about a guy who is probably in his mid thirties. A wife, a couple of kids and a well paying but unsatisfying job. When he was younger he had great dreams and aspirations and thought he would be great, powerful, achieve something, only to find that is life has turned out to be ordinary. A lot of us, including me most of the time, are a bit lost. We think we need to famous, first verse about Romeo, .
The pressures to constantly be "ON", and very rarely having the chance to be something else? So many artists find themselves stuck in the rut of constantly cranking out the same thing time after time, never allowed to be something else. I always thought the meaning of, "take the long way home" was another way of saying, "take time to smell the roses". Although marvelously well written the lyrics of this song is somewhat depressing and it's a step away for an ordinary middle aged dude to commit suicide. That line which reads "...who´s to blame when you´re not around? You TOOK THE LONG WAY HOME ". As they say, we gotta read between the lines.
Supertramp, " Take The Long Way Home " Drum Cover
I think it's about realizing what is truly important in life. The core meaning of the song to me is that you don’t have to struggle to do or be anything. But many people, including me in many ways, don’t realize that yet. It takes until we are about 70 years old to realize that most of our struggles were pointless. We, this time in past tense, took the long way home.
Whatever the case, i'm sure he has drawn a lot of this from personal experiences. In this case, the precipitating event is that he is walking own the street one day and an iron girder from a skyscraper building project falls and just misses him by inches. That causes him to rethink his life and split right at that very moment.
The band Trixter included a version of the song on their 1994 release Undercovers. If we already have the instrumental track, then you can suggest the accompaniment MP3 by clicking on the envelope on the related page. If the title is not currently available in any format, you can always request it with the suggestion tool. Click on the "Add to Cart" button and proceed to the payment of your order. If you have any doubts about your custom track, don't worry, you can always customize your Backing Track afterwards.
All musical material is re-recorded and does not use in any form the original music or original vocals or any feature of the original recording. Panning allows you to create distinct effects by adjusting the track’s sounds to left or right. All files available for download are reproduced tracks, they're not the original music. Having loved this song since it was released, what it speaks to me personally is a sense of needing to 'reset' one's outlook on the often out of control madness in our lives. I'm so very glad that the band didn't sell out and let Greyhound use this song for their commercials. This album is one of my all-time favorites.
It would be like hanging the Mona Lisa in a used car salesman's office. If you want to get each track separately, the only way to do so is to create them separately and then download the separated file individually for each instrument/track. To receive the best sound quality, the final mixing of your MP3 files can take a few minutes. You can follow your order on your My Files page. When the mixing is finished, you can download it just like any other file.
I have been lucky to play with many great musicans, for that I am grateful. This song appeared uncredited, along with "Child of Vision" (also from the "Breakfast in America" album) in the 1984 Richard Lester directed film, "Finders Keepers". The movie starred Michael O'Keefe ("Caddyshack") and Lou Gossett Jr. I don't know why this song has always struck me as being about suicide for some reason. I've always assumed that this song was about him and his failed or about to fail marriage.
In our hearts and in love we can find home at any time. So we don’t have to take the long way, struggle for attention, success, recognition, home. I can absolutely understand why he turned down the 5 mil offer. Putting the song in a commercial would greatly cheapen the song and it's message, which is loved by millions of people around the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment