Won't take nothing but a memory...

"The House That Built Me" by Miranda Lambert

I know they say you can’t go home again
I just had to come back one last time
Ma’am I know you don’t know me from Adam
But these handprints on the front steps are mine

Up those stairs in that little back bedroom
Is where I did my homework and I learned to play guitar
I bet you didn’t know under that live oak
My favorite dog is buried in the yard

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
This brokenness inside me might start healing
Out here it’s like I’m someone else
I thought that maybe I could find myself
If I could walk around I swear I’ll leave
Won’t take nothing but a memory
From the house that built me

Mama cut out pictures of houses for years
From Better Homes and Gardens magazine
Plans were drawn and concrete poured
Nail by nail and board by board
Daddy gave life to mama’s dream

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
This brokenness inside me might start healing
Out here it’s like I’m someone else
I thought that maybe I could find myself
If I could walk around in I swear I’ll leave
Won’t take nothing but a memory
From the house that built me

You leave home and you move on and you do the best you can
I got lost in this old world and forgot who I am

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
This brokenness inside me might start healing
Out here it’s like I’m someone else
I thought that maybe I could find myself
If I walk around I swear I’ll leave
Won’t take nothing but a memory
From the house that built me.

I keep listening to this song over and over again, and I can't figure out why. I even try to sing along but find myself actually getting choked up, unable to finish the words (not sad tears, happy ones). I get this picture in my mind of the house where I grew up. I think that is probably the purpose of the song. It's more than that, though. I can't figure it out.

233 N. Illinois

Morton, IL 61550

The little orange brick house on the corner of Illinois and Rassi with the one car garage, across the street from the Paluska's house, two doors down from the Pfisters, and next door to the Knaabs. Technically, we didn't even own the house until I was in middle school. The church owned it. That doesn't seem to make a difference when it's your home. I used to tell people that I could make it from the "big" room in the basement all the way up to the attic bedroom with my eyes closed and not hit anything. I knew it that well. I used to wonder who lived in the house before me. My problem was, I couldn't even imagine it belonging to anyone else. I went back one time. The summer after we moved to Kentucky, I rang the door bell of my own house and asked if I could look around. How strange. I've driven by a few times when I have been back in that town.

Why doesn't it feel the same? I guess I don't think it should be the same. I think my emotions are triggered in this song because I completely identify with the feeling that she describes. The feeling of happiness, comfortability, and family; the feeling of just knowing where you are and where you belong.

Lambert's spin on this song seems negative, but all I think of are happy things when I hear it. I don't know that the house in Morton built me, but I do know the feelings that the memory of that house ignite in my heart. I treasure them.

"If I could just come in I swear I’ll leave
Won’t take nothing but a memory."