Added: 5 years ago
From: murphicus
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  • Sometimes, you have to go home again.. in order to realize where you're at

    today. Loved Joe South since his songs in the 60's and 70's. He was always a voice

    with a conscience. Whatever happened to American idealism?? I have to say it

    went the same way as America's heart. It's a shame.

  • Nice laid back trip to yesterday...

  • Please dont take it personel , no you did not put the addin there! they did! you never seen a ad upload :(

  • LOVE THAT SONG BUT REALLY YOU CAN NEVER GO BACK LIKE IT WAS, EVEN WHEN HOME WAS A BAD PLACE, U LOVE TO TURN BACK THE CLOCK AND START YOUR LIFE OVER.,AMEN

  • love the song! but hate the fact that anyone would put a ad in there! news for you weasles, any ad in a video! is one that you can bank that i wont buy any thing from you! hacks. so put your ad,s on the side! some of us have lame-o dial up and it,s slow as it is, and you ad makes it that much longer!

  • I posted this 5 years ago (Today! Feb 7th) and I did not put any ads in. Watching it now, I see no ads.

  • @murphicus Heck, ads or no ads this song is a kick back, close your eyes and think about childhood memories! I have survived whatever came @ me 60+ years in Detroit but when I hear this poinient song it yanks on my heart knowing I can't go home! Mom, dad, my 2 beautiful sisters? All gone! It's nice to think back on those good ol' days despite my inablity to actually embrace those that ment so much to me! This song takes me back w/o too much pain! Thax 4 posting! Everybody? Close your eyes!

  • I love this song but the quality is quite bad on this recording.

  • Great song, great singer. Thanks for posting.

  • MILLIONS ALREAD HAVE !

  • Anyone know where Mr.South is living? Maybe Atlanta?

  • Some of us are profoundly affected when we learn, as most do, that we CAN'T GO HOME. Either "home" is gone, or the folks that made it worthwhile being "home" are gone or have changed, as have we. Thank God for the people who write and sing the songs that have helped me to understand life.

  • @daughterofRMS Well Expressed...., I remember reading where Bruce Springsteen was telling a psychiatrist, how he was going back to his old home where he grew up and where he didn't communicate with his dad so well, and found himself just cruising back & forth in the dead of night after night..., he asked "What am I doing"? And the counselor said..."You're trying to fix it..., and you can't." Don't it make you wanna go home?

  • Joe South is from Atlanta and went to the same high school as my late mom,

    Brown high school in southwest atlanta (westend).I wonder if he is still living?

  • @redwine1975atl Joe South is still alive and well, works in music publishing.

  • another piece of our past gone forever...lucky we have our memories...

  • "and a drive in show where the meadow used to grow and the strawberries used to grow wild" Hey our drive in show has gone back to nature ..... :)

  • Um, yeah I got that. He's whining about change pining for the good ol days. That's what I said. Perhaps it is you who is not paying attention?

  • This is so my kind of music!!! I really date myself.....

  • This is a great, great song.

  • I wanted to go home. No one was there any longer, so I retreated back into my mind. Music of the 30's 40's 50' 60's and 70's. Country/Western that is.

  • Stop whining about the "good ol days". The only constant in life is change!

  • @murschel1 Yeah, and much of that "change" sux.

  • @murschel1 If you listen to the words of this song you would realize that the song is about is change. Pay attention.

  • my 67 Firebird ran on this to northern Indiana many a time

  • A big part of going home for me was finding this song again after all of these years. I had this on 45 as a lad, and listening to it has brought back some wonderful memories.

  • 16 people didn't want to go home

  • hi,, im from Indiana and I remember a kinder , more gentler time that the generation now has no idea or memory of ( of course) I was a youngter in the late 60s and would ride my bike with my transister radio strapped to the handle bars and listen to all these old songs, which of course were new then. I remember listening to Rainy Night In Georgia. For some reason I was nuts about that song too . But I love an old song that Moe Bandy sings called Americana. Has anyone heard it ?

  • @SherylNahodil Love the song Americana by Mo. My most remembered song by Mo was, Here I am, I'm drunk again. (early 60's) Later in 1986 I heard hi "Till I'm to old to die young" It turns me inside out.

  • @dixie5pepper6 i feel ya,...i agree

  • It makes ME wanna go home and "I" never left.....

  • @beaverwithachainsaw Ha.. That's funny but I'm Not laughing..

  • I loved him then and I love him now. Need more music by him.

  • I use my grandson's YouTube account to listen to this. I hadn't heard Games People Play in 25 years-truly a great song. I have been visiting often. @bullysmom74-This was "the real America", God HOW I want to go home. So glad Joe is still out there making music, I did not know he wrote "Hush", it has a whole different flavor when he sings it.

  • You can never go home except in your mind.That place no longer exists except in your memories.

  • @GiomanachJohn < Sad but true ...!

  • @GiomanachJohn you are absolitely right ' nothing is the same when you go home ' things are so different

  • I remember this guy being given a 'polite' listen at the Purple Penguin club in Charlotte, NC in 1968 and the folks returned to the floor-lighted dance floor with vigor when the house system put on The Crazy Wold of Arthur Brown's song 'Fire'.

    Joe kinda died on stage that night.

  • Anyone remember this song being used in an early '70s anti-pollution PSA? Can't find it here on YT.

  • beautiful

  • we have no home left. no full service gas stations. only cell phone towers and walmart stores and 7-11 on every corner. What happened to America, what have we done?

  • @krapweasel57 isn't this sad, the younger generation do not know anything of the life you speak about, it was a wonderful time, now with things like they are in the government, makes me wonder even more, what happened to America that we once knew, what is going to happen, thanks for your comment.

  • This song makes me want to go back to my home in Tennessee.I have been away for many years,and I still miss my Tennessee home.

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  • A truly awesome song. Had the 45 when it was issued in 1969 and played the hell out of it. Sadly, the lyrics are spot on

  • My favorite song as a kid

  • How true. I've seen so much open land replaced with housing developments ,tanning salons,Gaps,and of course the umbiquitous WalMart.Nothing like when I was a kid

  • This is one of my all time favorite songs. Every time I drive through the neighborhoods I grew up in and I see less and less of what is in my memories, I think of this song. And tear up a little.

  • Hi Joe South Fans! See Joe South at the beginning of AVM's new 'Hush' video (posted on YouTube). Joe graced us by playing his original intro on our 2011 re-release of his classic! Joe says of AVM's version, "It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up!" Thank you, Joe. You are an amazing man! God Bless!

  • Was in Vietnam. Only song that ever brought a tear to my eye. Promised myself that if I ever got home I would never leave. Pretty much kept that promise. Thanks

  • @ddd3240 Brother, you just gave me goosebumps! I was 10 when this song came out and saw him on the Johnny Cash Show. I would hold the Mic up to the speaker and record the music and we would send it to my dad in Pleiku! He got hit that year and survived,but spent 2 years in the hospital. They said he would never walk again,but he fooled them and walked out of the hospital. I still have the cassette we sent to him with this song on it.

  • @meigsman59 So cool! You should post that story on Joe's Guestbook. Just search for "The Joe South official site" and go to "Fans" on joesouth dot com

  • @ddd3240

    Might be a little late but thank you for your service to our country. I was about 8 yrs old then but still remember watching Walter Cronkite every night on tv with the day's events in Nam. Different world then wasn't it, even for a kid. God Bless.

  • Was in basic training in 1969 when this song came out. Sure was popular there. Thanks for posting. Bob

  • I am looking for Joe South.. he is a distant cousin of mine and I have a disabled brother that asks about him every day..... Laurie Malcom Clifton, FB, Bob Studdards grand daughter

  • @kidicey Just go to joesouth DOT com and leave a message.

  • @kidicey Joe South is living in Miami beach with his born again bisexual boyfriend Jim Nabors.

  • @kidicey Looking for money?

  • @kidicey Yeah, I'm sure Joe can't wait to connect with a distant cousin he's never met.

  • @kidicey If you didn't find him he was living in Decatur GA up until recently.

  • What wonderful memories this makes of the 60's and how things have changed since then, With all the high tech items we have compared to back then.

  • My favorite song as a young kid, and I live in NYC!!

  • Never hear many of todays performers recognize Joe's work but wow ... this man was one talented man ... he actually was a few years ahead of his ime because his songs mainstreamed but would even do more so today ... Joe South congrats and thanks for some great music !

  • There is a person who locks and is doing to Japan similarly to "kula shaker".

    It goes out , saying that The Big Mouth "Shadow Of Your Gun (DEMO)" if it retrieves it.

  • He's beautiful.

  • It's funny. I've never heard of this guy but he's great.

  • Who are the dudes at 2.15+ , Joe and who?

  • @kennnmoran1 - Joe South, Bill Lowery, Tommy Roe 1969 Grammy Awards

  • Did you hear the story about Frank Sinatra, walked into a recording studio and said "Who's the fag with the guitar'? he had just spotted Glen Campbell playing.

  • @kennnmoran1 What a stupid thing for Frank to say. I wonder if he would have become famous without winning a singing contest.

  • i love joe south music

  • I first heard this song when I was about 16 and I loved it. I didn't know who sang it and I never heard it again. I have tried for years to find it but I didn't know the title, I typed in a few words this morning and it came up, I was so pleased. I think you can go home to a lot of places and not just your childhood home, my husband left me almost 8 years ago, we had been married for 25 years and this song makes me want to go home.........to the life I use to have with him.

  • Always loved this song, and thanks so much for the Joe South bio!

  • Your comments to this song (Denise9482, mwagoner,killebrew69, etc) make me miss the younger days when we listened to these songs on transistor radios, and we had our parents so all we had to do is enjoy growing up. Thanks for posting.

  • wanna go back to Ontario!!!

    

  • makes me want to go back to Ontario!!!

  • WOW HE IS JUST SO GREAT LOV HIS SONGS.

  • i love the intro

  • Makes me want to cry and I am a 55 year old man

    Why does youth have to be wasted on the young?

  • @pigurine It'd not wasted man. I'm 64 and I'm still young.

  • This man is WONDERFUL. I love ALL his music! What a voice!

  • Yeah I remember hearin' this tune playin' low on a transistor radio in the basement while my uncle Byron did his all his creative projects....musta been 1969....hey I'm from Nodak 2.

  • @killebrew69 RIP Harmon Killebrew who headed "Home" with the winning run 5/17/2011.

  • Joe South had plenty of pizzazz back in the day; young girls swooned, young men liked his style and sound, and most of all the really old people liked him too. Too bad his fame did not continue. Great radio music for sure.

  • Gene Clark did an even more touching version. Joe South had a hell of a batting average when it came to writing great songs which were covered by a wide variety of artists from hard rockers like Deep Purple to country songbirds like Lynn Anderson.

  • Joe was such a handsome guy! I really liked this song and now it's sad for me! Home was where my parents were but now they're gone and our home was sold. I played outside after dark, catching lightning bugs, playing hide& go seek on those warm summer nights in Alabama. Now I ride by our house and some stranger lives there. He has no idea of the 40yrs. of memories that are in my mind. Just gets me!!!

  • For some reason this song reminds me of my Grandpa and Grandma's hometown. I only been once but hearing stories all through my childhood makes me think of it. It also makes me think of backwoods norther kentucky where my great grandparents are from. never been but i hope to someday.

  • It reminds me of my 13 14 year old buddies. We had so much fun in the 60s

  • 1969 was the year my parents divorced, when I was 12. There are a lot of songs from that time that have very bittersweet memories for me. This is one of them. It made me cry for the first time in a long time.

  • COMIN HOME FROM VIET NAN -- 19YRS OLD W/ A YAER IN COUNTRY BEHIND ME. WHAT GREAT MEMORIES - WE DID FOR THE PRIDE AND THE MUSIC -- TOM TUCKER

  • timeless classic.............

  • just go to my my room 42 degrees and droping out side, carrington north dakota,iam delivery this guy in the morring and get my cold ass back home!!!

  • fantastic song. he should have been bigger then he was .

  • This is a great song.

    The Kentucky Headhunters actually do a good cover of this too.

  • This song was really popular when I was stationed at Udorn Royal Thai Air Force base, during the Viet Nam War... Always made homesick when I heard it

  • This song touched me deep down to my soul already when I was a teen and I'm almost afraid to ask but whatever happened to him? Now I'm going to have to google him.

  • You might not believe it, but there was a time when the San Fernando Valley was beautiful. It's just northwest of downtown LA. There were no freeways and the valley was covered with orange orchards and walnut trees. You took the Sepulveda pass to get to Santa Monica and the beach. My brother and I use to go fishing ( yup, fishing!! ) behind the Sepulveda Dam in the little river that trickled through there. It's like a dream now 'cause there's nothing like it now, and that's sad.

  • My brother sent me this 45 in 1969 as he was leaving for Nam. This is still one of my favorite songs. Yes he did make it back home!

  • @sonnyd1957 glad your brother made it back. i left a few over there this song still tears me up

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  • In my opinion, Joe South was touched by God and didn't know what hit him...

  • great song-- I've always loved the songs Joe South wrote and sang, they all mean something

  • Wow, great stuff!

  • I heard this song when I was little & even now,

    It makes me wanna go roam!!

    All those fading, lost, forgotten places..

    I love this , Thank You !!*****!!

  • Gotta give Joe South due credit, but it was Glenn Campbell's version I first listened to and I prefer it though !

  • Jimmy Webb wrote most of Campbell's hits

  • very good song writer wished elvis presley sung more of is songs did bit of this

  • this makes me think of my home state of North Dakota, makes me wanna go home I sure miss my family.

  • @davidgmetoo

    Where in NoDak? I'm from near Fargo/Moorhead - also, check the video response - my buddies - teachers in Hawley

  • @murphicus West Fargo area w elive don chyenne st then lived north on cass county rd 17 about 3 miles north. just north of the Red River Grain Elelvators

  • @murphicus West Fargo area we lived on chyenne st then lived north on cass county rd 17 about 3 miles north. just north of the Red River Grain Elelvators

  • @davidgmetoo A WF Packer! Lots of WF friends from my days as a Cobber!

    I tried moving back to F/M @15 years ago, but you can never go home. On visits I feel more like a foreigner too. Things keep changing while we are away and we've not had the view of it happening gradually. I remember when "West Acres" was just an island out in a flat field! WF, Fargo, Moorhead & Dilworth were all separate places, now they are basically one. Also, all the school consolidations make teams unrecognizable,

  • In two weeks I am going back home where I grew up in Indiana. I can't wait !!! Great song by one of my favorite old artists.

  • i remember my boyfriend palying his guitar and singing this ,he finished the song got up took his guitar and smased it over the table. To this day iI have no idea why..Maybe he was homesick..Funny..but really really strange, i am married to him now..That is even funnier.and stranger ..he doesn't do that anymore ,which is good because he couldn't sing or play guitar

  • @notgonnabenice Ha Ha Ha. Great story. You're funny.

  • @tomthefunky laughing at yourself is almost as much fun as laughing at others..haha

  • I love this song......oh it brings back alot of good memories...in Savannah Georgia

  • Dedicated to Susan, because Joe South is from Georgia too! <3

  • love glen campbell, but tjis song -to me, is only JOE SOUTH!!

    Gives me chills every single time!!

    oh, to own a time machine!!!

  • AWESOME Tune Peace and thank you for the upload WOW

  • "Memphis Boys" by Roben Jones, is a new book just out about the story of the famous American Studios Band. Joe South was a major player in the Memphis music scene as well as Muscle Shoals. The cat got around!!

  • Joe touches the hearts of all of us from his '60's songs! And, what a voice!!!

  • @landrykkb

    IMO - Joe's version trumps the others - Joe wrote it. When there are 100+ covers of your song...

    Then again, I never liked Glen Campbell

  • @murphicus ditto on that!

  • @murphicus Campbell is MK ultra programmer, Im not sure about Joe South, but I sure like him better!

  • @landrykkb I very seriously doubt Glen Campell can sing this song better than Joe since Glen can't sing that well in the first place. This is and always will be a Joe South song. I use to sing along when I was just a kid!

  • @barbdel56 To make a remark like that,you've obviously never heard Glen Campbell's cover of this song and it sounds to me as if you're not a Glen Campbell fan,period.I wasn't knocking Joe South at all since he's a great songwriter and singer also.Bob Dylan is a prime example of perhaps the best songwriter ever who couldn't sing to save his soul!

  • @landrykkb You're kidding right?

  • @landrykkb

    I can't even find a copy of Glen Campbell's version - so I guess that not a whole lot of people agree with you.

    Sorry to ask, but did Glen Campbell ever write a song and make it a hit? Has glen ever written a song?

  • When we roam to far, we really find out how important it is go home,

  • I'm a 52 yr old guy, & I'm sittin' here sobbin' my eyes out...Please, Mommy, come back & make it all better...But that ain't gonna happen...She passed Aug 2008....

  • Gods child is weary this morning.

  • one of my fav songs of all time. when i was young.

  • Make sure to give the "video response" to this a listen too - my friend Jan does a little Minnesota twist on the song - he's originally from Elbow Lake, MN - and the guy playing Stand up Bass is from Waubun, MN - and they all now live in Hawley, MN - For those who have never lived in really small towns, take a look at those three towns on Google Maps - each under 2,000 in population - Still no traffic lights - most every business is farm related and the schools are the biggest employers in town.

  • @ Dingleright - This is such a beautiful song. So weary, would love to go back in my mental time machine, stay with my Grandpa and Grandma in the hills of Pennsylvania, catch grasshoppers, lizards, and lightning bugs and wait for the ice cream man....Best of all -- pick blackberries with my Grandma. If there's that Parellel Universe -- please let me find it!

  • @ChrisCurtisFan hey thanx for taking backi in time!

  • @nickatnoon61 -- my pleasure and thanks for your kind comment! :-)

  • @ChrisCurtisFan

    Your comment is so touching. Makes me fly back to my long-lost youth and remember the good old days. Yes, catching grasshoppers (not lizards though, yikes!), catching dragonflies, climbing trees and picking wild berries, running up and down some distant hills till I ended up at a river to skinny dip. Sadly those days are gone for good.

  • Early in 1980,I heard Joe South singing his version of "Song of the South,which I STILL prefer to Alabama's version.

  • Joe South-- we listened to all your hits on

    WEAM Arlington, VA, back in the 60's -- loved em all!! Just heard Joe's "Games People Play" here in Minneapolis on

    LOVE 105 FM . always wondered what happened to Joe South. This version is

    BEST -- yes it does make me wanna go home..

  • This song puts me right smack dab in the middle of Danang, late summer of '69. And yes Joe, we really wanted to go home. Badly. Songs like this provide a soundtrack to our lives and this one stirs up some vivid memories for me.

    I hope all my buddies--and we were the closest of buddies for 12 months--have survived and prospered all these many years since we were young....

  • @keyjack100 - THANK YOU for your service. Viet Nam vets are America's lost heroes, but not to me. I lost a friend over there in '69, Kirk Sims. To this day I remember his big smile, and think of him often. Glad you made it back.

  • No where as good as brook bentons version. when brook sings it he does it with a lot more feeling the type that makes you shiver.

  • You should upload it to youtube. His version is also not on the iTunes Store. I'd love to hear all the versions (over 100) by different artists, but remember who wrote it, Joe South - all the rest built on Joe's gem.

  • @thandie09 Although I agree with you thandie that Brook Benton is a master of "heartfelt emotional loneliness" as i would describe it, this is a great great version by Joe South. I will say one thing. BB singing "Rainy Night in Georgia" is as heart wrenching as any song I have ever heard.He is terrific.He is also great in duets with Dina Washington.But to me, this is Joe South all the way.No offense though.

  • This song is about my home town in Georgia, The drag strip that he is talking about is THE YELLOW RIVER DRAG STRIP it went out of business after a bad crash on March 2nd, 1969. The 6 lane Hwy is I-20 through GA, and the Drive in show is the HUB DRIVE IN it has been out of business since around 1977.

  • GOD, YES!!!!! I WANT TO GO HOME!!!!!!

  • Joe has a ton of talent from "Hush" to

    "Untie Me" and evreytjhing in between. Does anyone know what he is up to these days? He is an enigma, hope he is still with us.

  • Joe has a page - and he reads the comments on the guestbook! Joesouth(dot)com

    Cheers!

  • Wow, murphicus thanks for the info. Let's face it, South's music is wide-ranging and

    eclectic. A lot of people just don't get it,

    his stuff has stood the test of time!!

  • Also, I just put a link to Joe's page under "more info" and the Wikipedia page on Joe.

  • Now the grass don't grow and the rivers don't flow like they did in my childhood days.

  • Do the new string theories of quantum

    physics that possible parallel universes

    could be a reality mean there might be a

    possibility of "Going Back Home"? Dunno.

    Maybe?

  • During my Nam days this and the Animal's "We Gotta Get out of this Place" were certainly the chart toppers, Democrats have to keep finishing off republican's bad wars....what's that all about?

  • Hendrix !! Everything is what got me threw!

  • @mobegone It is the other way around tool

  • @mobegone Those where great songs alright but for in 71 &72 (101st) it was Paul Simon, Mother and child Reunion and CCRs Some day never Comes. . Peace and good luck to you.

  • @blueticecho For me it's The Smashing Pumpkins Thirty Three, and R.E.M. Find The River.

  • @blueticecho Holy Cripe! Those are the songs I think of, too. I don't see anyone talking about Some Day Never Comes. And Mother and Child Reunion was so great.

  • It"s songs like this that got me though Nam, and this is the first song that a black guy ever heard and it was with me. Both of us, just wanted to go home, I was from va , he Was from N.J. we meet about three yrees ago. We just looked at each other then,laughed like we kids. Thats what we were, when we meet, before we had to kill people

  • Otis Reding Dock of the bay,,, !!

  • I wanna go home, I don't wanna play anymore..

  • Not much of a Billy Joel Fan... Thanks.. I think of this time of the year and where I was 40 -39- years ago... and are young man & women off in some god forsaken place in the world.. keeping peace...

  • First time I heard this I was standing in a rice patty in south east asia.. on my am radio..

  • Wow. That is a moment that I am happy that you are here to remember, treasure and pass on to all of us.

    Do you know of any archive of personal photos from the Vietnam era? I'm thinking of the images in Billy Joel's "Goodnight Saigon"

    I know that for many, images from the time may bring pain, but I really hope that the times are documented.

    Thank you for your service!

  • I'm physically back...

  • OMG 40 years... !!! It's weird when you hear songs.. like this.... talk about flash back !!!!

  • It's something you have to go threw.. and for are young men ~ women serving now. I hope will have a easier transition then us when we came home...

    I remember the military snuck us back into the country in the middle of the niight..

  • glad ya made it back, man..