Travel might broaden the mind, but there comes a point where you find yourself so far out, so far from home, so ready to stop and in need of stability. Steve Stinson knows that feeling better than most; raised between continents and having the sort of curiosity that has led him across the globe, he has put in the hard miles in the very literal sense, and having done that, as the song suggests, you get to a point when it is time to embrace home and everything it implies.
So, ‘Fly Away’ is an ode to the idea of home, it is what happens when the wanderlust is sated; it is the epitome of what T.S.Eliot meant when he said “I didn’t see my hometown till I went around the world,” the idea that you can only appreciate the place you are from until you have explored contrasting cultures and exotic places. But it is also a reminder that home is not only a physical place, but home might also be found within you; it might be the person that has traveled with you; it can be as spiritual as it is physical, as intangible as it might be an actual location. Not all maps can be drawn logically for others to see.
A mid-paced indie-pop ballad, embellished and expanded by shimmering waves of electric guitar, gently propelled by deft drum shuffles, underpinned by chiming piano, it is a gorgeous affair, and poignantly and perhaps quite timely, the musical final chapter in Stinson’s own private odyssey.
