“Home Town” by Joe Jackson

Joe Jackson wrote "Home Town" for Big World, his 1986 live album, as a love letter to Portsmouth, where he grew up, and by his own account it was a deliberate exercise in nostalgia, a mode he rarely lets himself slip into. It came out as the single after the politically charged "Right and Wrong".

The narrator is a harried city worker itching to chuck it all in and head back to the town he came from, not even sure it's still there. Jackson arranged it and sings lead over a soft-rock setting with a clean guitar line, Vinnie Zummo on guitar and Gary Burke on drums. It never troubled the charts, but critics have warmed to it since, and Jackson has joked on stage that he tries not to write too many nostalgic songs, though sooner or later they all become one.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.