Timothy Street takes you back to his old stomping grounds in his nostalgic new single and video My Home Town — showcasing today on Tinnitist.
Having grown up in a military family that moved around a lot, Street always envied the people who had stayed in one place and couldn’t wait to leave and see the world. “That’s what I was daydreaming about when I wrote My Home Town,” the Canadian folk-rocker explains. “It’s about having roots somewhere, a sense of belonging, and a stable home that I never really got to have.”
The result is an easy, jangly guitar-and-harmonica tale sung in whiskey-smooth tones about a town where the narrator drank his first beer, bought his first guitar and kissed a girl in the back of a police car. It’s not total fairy-tale nostalgia: For many years, Street lived in Halifax, where he learned to play music and became a part of the music community. “That city will forever have a huge place in my heart,” he says.
When city life became too expensive in 2016, Street moved to Grand Manan Island, N.B., where he has family connections. He bought the land where he now lives — and where he recorded the entirety of his new album Folk Town. The video for My Home Town was shot along the roads and beaches of the island. “I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a place with friendlier people than here in the Maritimes,” he reveals, “but, even still, I’ll probably forever be seen as an outsider in such a small, close-knit community like this one — even with family connections and having spent a lot of time here growing up — and that’s OK. To me, it’s my home town.”
Over the course of eight songs, Folk Town combines the personal and the political, and includes songs about timeless struggles and the pursuit of love and belonging. The album deals with holding onto hope in this modern age of political division, and with the ever-growing chaotic state of the world. It’s filled with songs that are nostalgic for the good times, and it glorifies small-town living, the influence of a tight-knit community, and the simple joys of life. The songs will have you reminiscing about your youthful mistakes and the carefree feeling of falling in love.
Watch My Home Town above, listen to Folk Town below, and make yourself at home at Timothy Street‘s website, Facebook and Instagram.
