Home is Where the Hatred is

"Home is where the hatred is"

That is one incredible line, so much meaning there, and such a clever play on words...Respect, man, respect

i'm not at all into funk or anything like that, straight punkska and hardcore. but damn i love this song. so much damn meaning to it. "home is where the needle marks try to heal my broken heart." that line got me alot. i got a couple of my friends to listen to it and not try to criticize but to just listen. it was freakin' moving as hell. its amazing, i love this song. anyways, this song is just about how gil scott hated the city he lived in and didn't feel like he could go back, andi think he moved away from all the bad influences later.

This some is about how he was addicted to Herion

Fantastic poem about a junkie who came from a bad place and is now in an infinitely worse one. The last line is ambiguous, hopeful and doomed, likely on purpose - can he quit, or is he ready to give up and die?

You can't change things you might want to change, if you don't have the support structure around you to do that. It might be because you're surrounded by people who just don't support you no matter what, or it might be that you're surrounded by people who don't want to change themselves (like if you want to quit smoking but your whole family smokes). Change is hard and scary.

1971 and Gil Scott-Heron totally nailed the childhood-trauma/substance abuse relationship. He goes into great detail about the pain an addict feels as they try and deal with issues related to their childhood. And like a G, Gil suggets not going home anymore, as that has been a source of emotional pain. As a recovering childhood emotional trauma survivor whose family stayed sick, I highly recommend Gil's suggested course of action related to home, hard as it may be. The feeling of cutting off sick family is so Goddamn liberating

Thelastpunkkid, I think its a bit deeper than simply hating 'the city he came from'

Personally I think home is very specific to Gil's own parental home. I think it was a place of great misery to him, which perhaps led him to turn to drugs, which made the situation worse as he was then outcast by his parents and given no support.

" stand as far away from me as you can and ask me why hang on to your rosary beads close your eyes to watch me die you keep saying, kick it, quit it, kick it, quit it"

You dig?

His parents, perhaps conservative and religious, couldnt accept him, they looked on in fear from a distance and simply turned their backs on him until such time as he kicked the addiction.

I believe his 'home' is his addiction.

"home is where i live inside my white powder dreams home was once an empty vacuum that's filled now with my silent screams home is where the needle marks try to heal my broken heart"

"and it might not be such a bad idea if i never, if i never went home again"

And while it's easy to say "kick it, quit it," physically it's not that simple, but he does know it would be best to quit.

But as iterated below... He can't kick it, can't go home again

These lyrics sound like they could have been written by some mopey, adolescent angst-fueled teenager.

BUT, this guy makes them sound real. Love it. It's always interesting when you find a song that reads like it could have been written in 2011. He sings it with this understated emotion, making it hard not to be moved...unlike some other bands lately that come off as whiny and attention-seeking.

Gil Scott Heron was an amazing writer and conveyer of words, and it's a fucking shame that the only reason I'm aware of him is by hearing the news of his death.