Your “Stay-at-Home” song playlist: the 60 Greatest Songs About Home

Hard to believe there was a time after 2003 when Maroon 5 made their chart debut that they actually found it hard to have hits. But there was a four-year span between 2007 and 2011 when the group had zero top-10s. “Won’t Go Home Without You” came during that window, peaking at No. 48 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2008.

Monday...sad, sad Monday! This equally split British-American band (at least in 1977) felt at home on the charts with this - their third-consecutive top-40 hit from their self-titled debut album. Didn’t fare on the charts as well as the first two singles, “Feels Like the First Time” and “Cold as Ice,” but it’s good enough to sneak onto this list at No. 59.

This sleepy, promise-filled tune by Faith Evans reached No. 3 R&B and Top-30 pop (Hot 100) in late 1995 and was the Bad Boy Entertainment artist’s followup to her debut earlier that year. One figures that all of that apologetic sentiment had to be directed at label mate and then-husband The Notorious B.I.G., whom she married a year earlier.

From his classic No. 1 album ‘City to City’ came this third single, which followed “Baker Street” and “Right Down the Line.” Not bad company to be in, even if it didn’t fare as well on the charts as the first two. “Home and Dry” flirted with the top 30 in America in 1979.

There are eight different songs on this list simply titled “Home.” This all-American collaboration between rapper Machine Gun Kelly, rockers X Ambassadors, and singer Bebe Rexha is the first one. The song originated from the 2017 Netflix movie “Bright,” as if you needed anymore Netflix associations during the current quarantine.

R&B superstar Usher Raymond was only 31 when he dropped this tune in 2010, but that didn’t stop him from playing on people’s daddy issues. The song’s parenthetical subtitle is what got it on this list, and that title appears twice more in this countdown (keep scrolling).

For all you BTS haters out there, just give this one a listen. Full of millennial musical tricks, yes. But the song has some strong appeal - like a lot of their stuff does if you can get past the unfortunate stigma that has many believing the S. Korean septet to be mere social media darlings propelled mostly by their extremely loyal “army” of fans.

Rapper Foxy Brown employed the formula used by many rappers back in the ‘90s: connect with a hot R&B act to sing your hooks and sample a familiar ‘80s tune. The winning recipe gave her a top-10 R&B/Hip-Hop chart single and continued her trajectory to ‘90s stardom.

Motown’s Jr. Walker was at his soulful best on this horn-blaring, tambourine-shaking gem from 1971 that includes a songwriting credit from none other than...wait for it...Gladys Knight, the singing legend who also recorded for Motown at the time.

The 1992 motion picture ‘Boomerang’ (starring Eddie Murphy, Halle Berry, and Mike Tyson’s ex-wife Robin Givens) generated several hits, the most important of which being this smoldering mid-tempo ballad that introduced the world to singer Toni Braxton.

Here’s the first of blink-182’s two songs on the list. A nice reflection on family that served as the last single released from their 2016 album ‘California.’ It reached the top 40 on Billboard’s rock charts, but missed the main chart, the Hot 100.

This was former pop heartthrob Bobby Vinton’s contribution to the anti-war sentiment brewing in the U.S. during the mid-to-late 1960s as the Vietnam war revved up. The song sounded like an oldie even then, but managed a No. 11 peak on the charts in 1967.

This is one of the oldest songs on the list. Released in 1965, it was part of the British music invasion that brought groups like The Dave Clark Five to America. They reached No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart that spring.

The lyrics on this classic 1989/90 Babyface tune reflect a time when social distancing was the last thing on the singer’s - or anyone else’s - mind, especially when he got home from work. Ahhh...the romantic early ‘90s.

R&B crooner Eugene Wilde bookended 1985’s R&B charts with the year’s first and last No. 1 hits. This smooth ballad was the first, topping the chart for a lone week in January. The song “Don’t Say No Tonight,” which could’ve passed for a sequel to its similarly themed predecessor, topped the charts for three weeks beginning that December. Ironically, they would be Wilde’s only two No. 1 hits.

The ubiquitous Drake has reached a level of celebrity where even his negative COVID-19 result makes news. It’s an all-Drake world, a status that was scheduled to be commemorated with his crowning as Artist of the Decade at next month’s Billboard Music Awards. But hold on, that event will likely be postponed in the midst of the current public health emergency involving COVID-19.

The punk rock outfit from San Diego is the unlikely act who ties for the most songs on this homely list with two entries (joining folk-pop legend John Denver). Their “Please Take Me Home” is a fun romp about a guy who falls for a friend and is struggling mightily. Incidentally, this has to be the fastest-paced song on the list.

This emotional song from 2007 builds around the protagonist pleading for his subject to come home, with enough ambiguity to create debate as to whether it’s a romantic plea or a social commentary about the American troops in the two Middle Eastern wars occurring at the time.

If you don’t agree with Nugent’s politics and generally consider him to be an asshole, then fortunately the only thing you’ll hear from him on this great instrumental from his classic LP ‘Cat Scratch Fever’ is his lead guitar. It’s his classic riffs that make this song worthy of this stay-at-home list, even if its homely title is never uttered.

There are some sweet, home-themed songs on this list that were never officially released as singles, but which were on albums so iconic they couldn’t be overlooked. This was one of ‘em...from Carole King’s 1971 classic LP, ‘Tapestry.’

This was the song that started it all for young star-in-the-making Stephanie Mills in the 1970s during the Broadway production of ‘The Wiz.’ More than a decade later (in 1989) her studio redo of “Home” became her fifth and final No. 1 on the Billboard R&B chart, a fitting full-circle ending to a stellar chart career during the ‘80s.

Brother Michael was the first to venture outside of the Jackson 5 to record as a solo artist. Jermaine soon followed suit with this remake of the Shep & the Limelites 1961 classic, which the young Mr. Jackson took to the top ten 12 years after the original made it there.

No list is complete without a Taylor Swift song on it, and this one’s no exception. On this track from the deluxe edition of her 2012 album, ‘Red,’ the pop princess cautions a potential lover to return to the woman waiting for him at home with snappy lines like: “call a cab, lose my number; you’re about to lose your girl...let’s consider this lesson learned.” Now that’s upstanding!

While almost all the other songs on this list extol the virtues of home, this one explores all the problems that going home can bring for a junkie: from pain-killing, drug-infused needles to cocaine-induced hazes. Soul singer Esther Phillips turns in a stirring vocal performance, one surrounded by swirling strings and well-placed horn blasts. A musical gem whose low chart performance belies its true artistry. Hang on to your rosary beads!

Linda Ronstadt was “involved” in the Randy Newman musical that introduced this beauty, a song she later recorded with Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris for the album ‘Trio II’ in 1994, as well as Ronstadt’s solo album ‘Feels Like Home’ in ‘95. It’s the first of about six songs that qualify as country on this list.