My Top Ten Coming Home Songs

Two posts ago, I covered songs demanding we come home. Here are ten songs that do what they're told....


10. The Lightning Seeds featuring David Baddiel & Frank Skinner - Three Lions

I like Ian Broudie's Lightning Seeds. I like David Baddiel. I like Frank Skinner. And as an anthemic slice of Britpop, I even like this song.

I just don't like the football.

Plus, I kind of preferred Justin Currie's message to the Scottish team - Don't Come Home Too Soon!

9. Kiss - Comin' Home

A song about being on tour and missing your girl back home... and I'm sure Kiss stayed faithful the whole time.

8. Neil Diamond - Comin' Home

Another song about being on tour and missing your girl back home... but I like to think Neil managed to keep it in his pants while he was away. (I may be wrong.)

7. Shirley Lee -  Coming Home

Still one of the most unsung songwriters of his generation...

Two lovers stop you and ask
You to take their photo
Tears streaming down your face
They go and stand by the rail
The Bay behind them
Angel Island
And you’re already gone
You’re already gone
You’re already gone away…

6. Frank Turner - St. Christopher Is Coming Home

Nobody writes songs about friendship quite like Frank Turner. 

5. Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band - Comin' Home

Bob prepares to welcome back an old friend who left for the big city lights ten years back... and may well be coming back with his tail between his legs.

You can go home again.

4. Fleetwood Mac - Coming Home or Fleetwood Mac - Coming Home

So it turns out there are two completely different Fleetwood Mac songs with this title... and neither of them sound like anything you'd expect a Fleetwood Mac song to sound.

The first is from the group's original incarnation in 1968, when they were Peter Green's British blues band (although the eponymous Mick Fleetwood and John McVie were knocking around on drums and bass respectively).

The second is even more bizarre. Taken from the band's NINTH album in 1974, this was written by then lead singer Bob Welch (who was soon after replaced by Lindsey Buckingham) and it sounds like some kind of trippy psychedelia. Still, it was the first Mac album to crack the American charts... so I guess they were heading in the right direction.

3. Half Man Half Biscuit - Paintball's Coming Home

To the tune of He's Got The Whole World In His Hands, Nigel Blackwell prepares for the visit of some annoying neighbours / friends / relatives. Who they are or why they're coming to call is unimportant... but he gives us plenty of reasons to dread their arrival.

They were due on the Crystal Maze
Yeah, they were due to go on the Crystal Maze
Yeah, they were due on the Crystal Maze
But they got mugged in Florida

2. Richard Hawley - Coming Home

One of his earliest songs: like listening to an old radio picking up broadcasts from another era...

1. Mel Tormé & The Cookies - Comin' Home Baby

Love this - although it does have rather a bizarre history. Tormé was a white jazz crooner from the Sinatra era, persuaded to record this infectious pop-soul number in the early 60s with girl group The Cookies pretty much against his wishes, by all accounts. He didn't think much of the song but it went on to become a pretty big hit... later revived by Northern Soul DJs, which just goes to show those guys knew their stuff. Much later covered by Bublé, who doesn't make a bad crack at it... but the original is still the best.



Which one are you coming home to?