Everyone is from somewhere. The question is how many of us, after leaving, want to go back. It’s a topic that Michael McDermott explores on the forthcoming St. Paul’s Boulevard, and most notably on lead single “Sick of This Town”. “Be careful of the past, don’t let it drag you down, there’s no shame in all the things you might regret,” he sings, “Be careful of the ghosts that love to hang around, they’re just there to remind you what you’re trying to forget.”
Musically, McDermott sure knows how to write an anthem. And I’m not talking in the Gary Glitter “Rock and Roll Part 2” kinda way (although there’s nothing wrong with that sports staple). Rather, he magnificently crafts sing-alongs that are infused with raw and universal emotion.
Says McDermott about the song:
After living in several different cities and traveling the world playing music somehow it happened. Be it happenstance or Providence, I’m back in the town I grew up in. The town I spent my entire childhood dreaming about leaving. The place I couldn’t wait to get away from. This was never part of the plan. This was not the dream.
What I have learned as an experienced world traveler these many years is that there is good and bad everywhere. There is beauty and ugliness, pros and cons, kindness and wickedness, so on and so forth. Happiness isn’t geographical. There are a lot of ghosts on these corners and a story to be told about nearly every street, but for now at least it is once again home. Meeting people from different countries and sharing stories and meals, there is a kind of love/hate people have about where people live or come from. It’s a universal thread. I feel that too. I’m in a red town in a blue state, which makes me an outsider, but come to think of it, I always was.
Twangville is honored to premiere the video for Michael McDermott’s “Sick of This Town”. Feel free to sing along.
About the author: Mild-mannered corporate executive by day, excitable Twangville denizen by night.