"Country Roads" Nostos

John Denver is making a comeback this summer- through the USMNT soccer team. Each country chooses a song to play after they win. For the US I hear “Country Roads” was mainly chosen because it would get the fans to sing (“Sweet Caroline” was already chosen!). That doesn’t make the choice any less fitting, because familiarity is part of what the song is about- the desire for the familiarity of home. “There’s no place like home,” as Dorothy once said.

Perhaps we Americans and in particular West Virginians (Professors Charles Kesler and Robbie George for example) have the unheimlich experience more severely than people rooted in the old world. As this CBS Sunday Morning video explains though, it is a universal theme.

One of the professors in the video referred to a Welsh concept I had never heard of, “Hiraeth.” I don’t know much about that, but I do know about the idea we will see played out on the big screen in Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey- the desire for a NOSTOS, a homecoming.

Here’s a picture of my own Homecoming last year back in Arkansas

It is a very deep desire, one we also see played out in the exitus and reditus of the soul back to God described in the Bible.

So- good song choice, USMNT!