Lyr Add: Here Is My Home (Si Kahn)

Subject: Lyr Add: HERE IS MY HOME (Si Kahn)
From: Barbara
Date: 19 Nov 99 - 09:43 AM

Here's my all time favorite Si Kahn song, one that always moves me to tears, and will wipe out an entire room of people that have been off in the woods camping together and making music for a few days. It is a call and response song, and can be found on Si and John McCutcheon's "Signs of the Times."

HERE IS MY HOME
(Si Kahn)

Good friends from whom we now must part,
Where are we bound?
Your hands and voices lift my heart;
Here is my home.

CHORUS:
Come darkness, come light
Where are we bound?
Come morning, come night
Here is my home.

For those who work in harmony,
Where are we bound?
Can learn to live in unity;
Here is my home.

If we can join ourselves in song,
Where are we bound?
Our hearts will live when we are gone;
Here is my home.

The spirit that finds music here
Where are we bound?
Will sing forever in the air
Here is my home.

---

Click to play

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Here Is My Home -- Si Kahn
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 05 Mar 03 - 01:20 PM

A tune for this, please, and/or recordings?

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Here Is My Home -- Si Kahn
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 05 Mar 03 - 01:45 PM

Oops, yeah, that's Signs of the Times from Rounder Records.

There's a tantalizing clip available on-line, but it doesn't give the complete chorus.

~ B in T

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Here Is My Home -- Si Kahn
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 21 Oct 03 - 12:19 AM

I've made another verse:

In dancing to this joyous sound
    Where are we bound?
From hand to hand, pass love around;
    Here is my home.

---

I love the way this song adapts to many kinds of spiritual and/or physical "homes." I've used it as a closer for my cohousing community's meetings. I planned earlier this year to get to writing a dance verse to use it to close the annual meeting of the Country Dance and Song Society (but I couldn't go, as it turned out).

Needed a closer this past weekend at a dance fundraiser/celebration for a dear dance community friend who is dying of cancer -- so I finally got the dance verse made (and skipped the "work" verse). Being 3/4 chorus, it's also very quick for a group to get into. We sang it at the end of the night this weekend, and I didn't want to have to work to teach a new round (like Onawa's Waltz) or do anything too complicated, or sing myself too much.

Then led it again on Sunday afternoon for the singing group that's heavily populated by peace/justice advocate types as a preview for the concert that Si Kahn will do here in a week.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Here Is My Home -- Si Kahn
From: Barbara
Date: 21 Oct 03 - 12:26 AM

A minor point, Becky, to a nice addition:
I'd rather sing "From hand to hand love passes round"
But it may just be me...
Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Here Is My Home -- Si Kahn
From: JennyO
Date: 21 Oct 03 - 12:25 PM

I have sung this one a few times lately, because it has taken on a special meaning for me. During a difficult period of moving away from nasty flatmates and into a new home with a good folkie friend, I sang it at my folk club, and felt so moved, I could barely manage to get through it.

This tough time was documented in this thread - Help: A difficult move-JennyO needs support
and I certainly did get the support - both from lots of lovely people on Mudcat, and from friends who helped me move.

I decided I would sing the song again when the move was completed and we had our first session. That happened around my birthday about three weeks ago. By that time, another unexpected but delightful event had happened - the friendship had blossomed into love. So from a crisis has come a beautiful new relationship, and I have come home in a much greater sense than I would ever have dreamed of.

So whenever I sing "Here Is My Home", I'm singing it for John. I'll be sure to sing it at our BBQ and song party for friends and helpers on the 23rd next month when Charley Noble and Naemanson come for their visit, too.

Jenny

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Here Is My Home -- Si Kahn
From: mg
Date: 21 Oct 03 - 12:46 PM

congratulations Jenny..is the new gentleman the roomate? That would be so convenient, as wella s romantic.

And Becky, aren't you supposed to be having a baby around now?

mg

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Here Is My Home -- Si Kahn
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 21 Oct 03 - 01:27 PM

Barbara - as far as I'm concerned, making it work for you is just fine with me. I had to force out a verse that day, and I haven't quite decided what I think of it. I guess I worded it that way to make it a suggestion, rather than an observation, and I might go different ways in different situations, myself.

Congratulations, JennyO!

Mary - must be a different Becky!!! Mine's 8 now, and there are no plans for any further additions to the family... :-)

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Here Is My Home -- Si Kahn
From: JennyO
Date: 21 Oct 03 - 02:07 PM

Yes, Mary - same person. I have known him in the folk scene well enough to talk to for years, but in the weeks leading up to the move I came over for dinner a few times and we played some music together and talked and we got to know each other a lot better. He was a great moral and practical support in dealing with the nasty flatmates and the packing and moving.

I had noticed that the friendly hugs had been getting longer, and a friend of mine was convinced that something romantic was afoot. Then the night before the Big Move, something shifted, and the rest is history. Talk about a fairytale ending!

It took a while for my brain to catch up with all the changes I'd been through, but I'm feeling very comfortable with it now. One of the great things is that he really likes all my "stuff" and we're having so much fun getting things in order and making this house into a home.

Jenny

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Here Is My Home -- Si Kahn
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 08:44 PM

Thanks for rounding off the story like that for us, Jenny. Well, rounding off this segment anyway. (There's the making of a sort of folk opera in there...)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Here Is My Home -- Si Kahn
From: Barbara
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 02:02 PM

Refresh.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Here Is My Home -- Si Kahn
From: RTim
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 02:22 PM

Is the reason for refreshing this anything to do with the thread about not being able to sing without crying?

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Here Is My Home -- Si Kahn
From: RTim
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 05:08 PM

I have taken the liberty of adding my version of the song onto my MySpace page.
Try - http://www.myspace.com/timradford

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Here Is My Home -- Si Kahn
From: Barbara
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 06:10 PM

Exactly.
Though I also refreshed it to tag it because I couldn't remember the words -- happens especially when I am crying, you know? -- and I wanted to have a link to it since the super search has gotten so wodgy.
Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Here Is My Home -- Si Kahn
From: BB
Date: 25 Jan 10 - 03:06 PM

Wodgy - now there's a nice word... Thanks, Barbara

Barbara

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Here Is My Home (Si Kahn)
From: phylliselkind
Date: 21 Apr 10 - 07:51 PM

Does anyone know if this song was written originally for a group of deaf people -- thus the line 'hands and voices'?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Here Is My Home (Si Kahn)
From: GUEST,catherine pestano
Date: 18 Jun 11 - 03:56 AM

lovely version Tim

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Here Is My Home (Si Kahn)
From: Carol
Date: 04 Dec 20 - 05:26 AM

Funny l always sang it as 'your songs and voices lift my heart.'
Going to relearn/revive it just as long as l can sing it without tears.