by Joy Williams and Matt Morris (2015)
When I think of the great lyricists I often think about how they turn the most ordinary of phrases into something memorable and beautiful. I think of Ira Gershwin and "They can't take that away from me". I think of Irving Berlin and "Isn't it a lovely day?". I think of Hal David and "What's it all about, Alfie?". Then I think, who the heck is Alfie, anyways?
And I also think something similar is happening here in the chorus to this song.
Welcome home
Welcome home
It's so good to see your face
Welcome home
That line - "it's so good to see your face" - is nothing on paper. It's conversational, undramatic. You'd never find it in a poem. But in this song, it's perfect. The rest of the lyric is a bit more flowery. But that chorus remains beautifully, wonderfully ordinary.
The song is deliberately vague. It could be about a mother welcoming for her baby into the world ("I've been whispering your name again and again"). It could be about a divine Creator welcoming lost souls back into a heavenly Eden ("You belong, you are loved, you are wanted"). Or, since it was made famous by a Toyota advert, it could be something to do with built-in sat nav and a tip top fuel-injection system.
The point is that the vagueness gives you space to fill in the blanks.
Speaking of space, the music is doing a good job here too. The accompaniment features long, held notes on low and high strings, leaving the voice to drift in the musical space inbetween. The music leaves room for the words just as the words leave room for their interpretation, so that all the meaning in the world can be invested in a simple phrase:
"It's so good to see your face"
That is something only a song can do.
