4. Home Again
from the Lost Dogs album "Nazarene Crying Towel"
(Words and Music by Terry Scott Taylor)
©2002 Zoom Daddy Music

note:
In composing “Home Again” for The Lost Dog’s Nazarene Crying Towel I was making a conscious effort to recapture the old school Calvary Chapel/Maranatha music style so prominent during the early years of southern California’s so called “Jesus Movement”. The musical repertoire of “hippyish” groups such as Country Faith, Love Song, and later “The Road Home” contained many tunes whose arrangements had been largely influenced during that era by the folk/country rock stylings of musical entities such as The Byrds, Dylan, and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young; CSN&Y’s signature sound primarily consisted of beautifully blended, and sometime’s intricately woven, three-part harmony floating over acoustic guitar-based accompaniment, and not only did this genre influence many of the Maranatha musicians, but it would also impact the early folk-rock side of a newly formed band called Daniel Amos.
I was living in Northern California when a traveling version of Maranatha artists came to San Jose and performed a live show at a non-church venue. Being a new Christian and a struggling musician at the time, one who was still trying to find his own artistic voice, I found myself straddling the line between the drive to write original “popular” songs and an equal desire to write songs which gave expression to my new found faith. Seeing and hearing these young Calvary Chapel artists, with their long hair, beards, huaraches, flannel shirts, and blue jeans, playing strictly faith-based contemporary Christian music while simultaneously being entertaining, personable, impressively professional, and relevant to the culture of the time, was arguably one of the greatest musical epiphanies I’ve experienced in the course of my lifetime; it changed almost everything for me. Little did I know back then that I would one day, in the not to distant future, move back down South to the area I’d once called home and become a part of Maranatha Music’s illustrious history.
“Home Again”, like so much of the early Maranatha stuff, is a straight and simple message song, influenced by the story of the Prodigal Son; it needs no other explanation. Of note is the musical bridge in the middle of the tune which is about as close as I was able to get to capturing the vocal mannerisms and melodic structure of some of the early Maranatha folk-rock stuff; the exaggerated vocal vibrato is one of the signature features I chose to utilize. This song has another especially meaningful aspect to me; it is one of the late Pastor Joe Daugherty’s favorite Lost Dog tunes. Derri Daugherty is, of course, Joe’s son. I knew Joe well; he was a wonderfully kind, gracious, and loving man of God, and the sadness of his passing still haunts me. This one’s for you, Joe.