Home to Freedom

Judy Klass - Home to Freedom
Brooklyn, New York
Inspired by Octavia Butler's Kindred

Listen to the Track:

Quote from the songwriter:
This book captures how the sickness of slavery is part of our inheritance and still affects and damages people today. A lot of Civil Rights Era music drew on spirituals and slave songs used to guide people north. I returned to that music to show Dana’s disorientation, trapped between two eras. The bridge is more in her modern voice; I could hear a keyboard there. If the rest had a little more going on but was still kept spare, with a steady beat, it could help show kids how most modern forms of music have African American roots.

Lyrics to the song:
I’ve traveled so far, I can’t explain
I’ve got to get back to the future again
I’m going home to freedom

There is no star can lead me home
No drinking gourd that points to where I’m going
I’m going home to freedom

I’ve learned so much about what I’m made of
I’ve seen some parts of me I’m so afraid of
But I’m going home to freedom

We’re only made of flesh and bone
You’re flesh of my flesh, we all are so alone
I’m going home to freedom

No one here can really see me
Or know the heart of me
Can I make a clean escape
Will I have to leave behind a part of me?

The roots of this land, the child in my soul
The cradle must rock, the river must roll
I’m going home to freedom

And when I’m home, I can’t explain
My aching loss, this phantom pain
But I’m going home to freedom
Yes, I’m going home – to freedom

© Judy Klass