Alan Osborne ‘You Are My Home’ “theatrical and captivating”
‘You Are My Home’ is a focused and dedicative song that declares the songwriter’s love in an undeniable way. The music surrounding the song’s ideas is kept to a fairly minimal level at first, really encouraging the audience to focus on those ideals, the intimacy, the openness. As the song builds up the intensity rises and the leading melody, the hook, becomes more and more poignant and familiar.
The power of the song grows immensely as things move forwards, the instrumentation explodes, and the artist’s leading vocal performance evolves from the gentle and tender, almost whispered, to the almighty and passionate. The genre itself seems to mutate towards the end, adding this theatrical and captivating mood that slowly erupts and surrounds you as you listen. The great thing about it is that the essence of the song, those core ideas, that inherent emotion and love, remains consistent, remains at the heart of the music, the surrounding elements simply increase in energy and volume to highlight the feelings and the melody further and further.
The switch from the purely acoustic to the full band sound is brilliant, and as well aiding the progression of intensity, it highlights the fact that this song would work equally well as a solo acoustic performance as it would being part of a full throttle indie rock set up. There are various levels to the song, the build up is unexpected, and it works well. This idea of coming home, this person being that home, that love that drives everything, every thought and decision, is delivered with extreme passion and realness. At no point do you question the honesty, in fact the opposite is true, as the music builds, as the performance intensifies, the truth of it all becomes even clearer.
By Rebecca Cullen
Rebecca is a Musician and writer from Manchester, UK, with an MA in Song Writing
