About The Song
Dolly Parton released “Home” as the second single from her 41st solo studio album Blue Smoke on April 22, 2014, through Dolly Records and Sony Masterworks. The album itself arrived in North America on May 13, 2014. By this stage in her career Parton had spent much of the previous decade exploring bluegrass, Christmas music, and tribute projects, but Blue Smoke marked a return to a broader country-pop sound under her own independent label.
Parton co-wrote the track with Kent Wells, her longtime collaborator who also handled production duties on much of the album. Sessions took place across several Nashville studios in 2013. The song sits as track five on the twelve-song set and runs just over three minutes. Wells had worked closely with Parton on previous projects, and their writing process often drew directly from her personal reflections on life and roots.
The idea for “Home” grew out of Parton’s frequent thoughts about her East Tennessee upbringing in the shadow of the Great Smoky Mountains. She has described how, at seventeen, she left the family home in Sevier County to chase dreams in Nashville and beyond. Decades later, with a lifetime of success behind her, the song imagines the moment of returning to that place. In a 2014 NPR interview she spoke about how the album as a whole reflected her long journey back to those mountain origins.
The lyrics unfold as a first-person account of departure and homecoming. Parton sings of leaving at seventeen with ambitious dreams, watching many of them come true, yet always carrying the knowledge that a specific place waits where the warm wind blows and the river flows. She describes it as the spot where a weary soul can be restored, emphasizing the comfort and permanence of childhood ground. The words stay grounded in simple, vivid details rather than sweeping drama, mirroring the straightforward honesty that runs through much of her catalog.
At the time of release the song stood as a quiet counterpoint to the high-energy singles that often defined Parton’s later work. It arrived when she was seventy years old and still actively touring and recording, offering listeners a reflective pause amid her ongoing projects. Critics noted the autobiographical tone and how the album overall delivered her strongest commercial performance in years as a solo artist.
The single did not enter the main Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, but the parent album Blue Smoke debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 and number two on Top Country Albums—Parton’s highest-charting solo album to that point and her best first-week sales for a solo release in more than two decades. It also reached number two in the UK and earned platinum certification there.
A playful music video directed around the same time shows Parton preparing for a photo shoot in a colorful wardrobe, picking banjo, and moving through lighthearted scenes that contrast the song’s reflective lyrics with her trademark humor. The clip premiered on VEVO in late May 2014 and reinforced the track’s warm, personal feel. “Home” has since remained one of the quieter but enduring statements from Blue Smoke, underscoring Parton’s lifelong connection to the place that shaped her even as her world expanded far beyond it.
Video
Lyric
Lookin’ outta my windowpane
Tears minglin’ with the rain
I’m so lonesome I could cry, just like old Hank
Starin’ down on the city street
Feelin’ empty and incomplete
There’s a place I need to be to fill my tank
A place I can go where I can be free
Where I can be happy and just be me
Home
Where the warm wind’s blowin’
And the river’s flowin’ along
Like a lazy bum in the midday sun
And I’ve gone fishin’ with my pole at the fishin’ hole
Where I can lay down my heavy load
And know that I am always welcome home
I left home I was seventeen
I had a lot of ambitious dreams
Seen a lot of those dreams come true
I’ve had good luck
I ain’t complain’ that’s for sure
I got a lot to be thankful for
One of those things is a magic door that opens up
Back to the time when I was a kid
To the sounds of the crickets and the katydids
It’s called
Home
On the front porch swingin’
And the fern pots hangin’
Home
With the church bells ringin’
And voices singin’ those
Old songs that mend my mind like a stitch in time
Where the tea is sweet and the love complete
Oh me, I wanna go home
I often think about where I have been
Where I am goin’ and that’s about when I think about
Home
Where the soul finds comfort and the heart finds pleasure
Home
Where the depths of love is hard to measure
It’s home
I hear you callin’, I hear you callin’
I’ll never be lost as long as I know
There’s place like that where I can go
Where I can restore my weary soul
On the mountain slopes and the soft blue smoke
Of home
Home sweet home
Home
Back to the hills with the whippoorwills of
Home
With the fireflies blinkin’ and the night stars winkin’
Home
Honeysuckle vine and Muscadine wine at
Home
Where the ginseng grows in the shady groves of
Home
With family and friends and joy that never ends
Home
There’s no place like it, no place like it
Home