Audio Archive
Papa's Home — from Alex's original post

Papa's Home

Written in a day for an Athens charity Christmas record — dad up on the roof with the lights, mum and sister looking through photographs of Christmases gone by. The words were later changed to a band on the road.

Papa’s Home

'Papa's Home' has double vocals. It was originally written in one day for a Christmas album that an Athens publication called 'The Flagpole' puts out to benefit the Humane Society food bank, and all the local service organizations. All the Athens bands go cut a Christmas song. A lot of them cover 'Jingle Bells' and you know, Christmas songs. And we decided we'd write one. So we wrote it, and JB wrote some Christmasy words about -- it's kinda like waiting for dad to come home on Christmas Eve, and he's up on the roof putting the lights up on the chimney, and mom's holding sister and they're looking at pictures of Christmases gone by...

We started playing it and we found that it was really a great song to jam on. We wanted to record it for "Everyday" but we didn't feel that it should have a Christmas content. And since the Flagpole thing [The Mother Of All Flagpole Christmas Albums] was a very limited release, we changed the words to be more about a band being on the road, the crew guys joking during loadout, the promoter's happy. And you know, the secret agent, the double motives. Just things that happen to a band on the road. It's a great song. Sometimes the words get mixed up. Sometimes it's a Christmas road song. But it's one of my favorite ones to play.

[When it's not messed up is there no more Christmas content?] No, the words just get mixed up a lot; I don't know what influences that. If you listen to the version that's on "Everyday," it's about a band on the road. If you listen to the "Flagpole" version it's about Christmas. And usually when we do it it's mostly about Christmas.

-Dave Schools

By the numbers

Frequency
1 in every 4.5 shows
Most common lead in
Driving Song (23 times)
Most common lead out
Travelin' Light (17 times)
Most common set position
Set 2, song 8 (33 times)

Sources