Alex Ebert Defends “Home” Amidst “Worst Song Ever” Discourse, Says The Lumineers And Of Monsters & Men Took Inspiration From Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros

During discourse about the “worst song ever,” on Twitter/X, one user suggested Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros‘ 2009 hit “Home” in post that also included a clip of the band’s Tiny Desk performance of the song. This sparked even more discourse about whether or not the song is actually bad, and then discourse about “stomp clap” music, and then discourse about the entire late 2000s/early 2010s indie era in general. Magnetic Zeros leader Alex Ebert himself has responded to the discourse with a statement that finds The Lumineers and Of Monsters & Men being dissed, according to BrooklynVegan. In a video, he said,

“Here’s how you know when a song is good: If the bones are good, if the bones let the song survive context, if you pull it out of acoustic guitar, you put a piano there and it works, it’s a good song. You pull it out of the piano, you put it on the harp, it’s still working, you take out of the harp, you sing it a capella, it’s still working, good song.

Now “Home” has been covered multiple times, different things. Some of them are hits, like actual hit songs. Some guy takes it from baritone puts it in falsetto, you know, the one that went viral. Edith Whiskers, shoutout to whatever that is, that went viral. By the way we were the first to do the stomp and clap fuckin’ folk pop thing to the point where the Lumineers, they sought out one of our co-producers — he wasn’t actually our co-producer — and were like, “Hey, do that Edward Sharpe thing for us.” For real, that’s a real story. Of Monsters & Men, they got our album before they ever made an album because our agent was their manager and she showed it to them and they basically got so close to “Home” that we almost sued them. They were doing Apple commercials and I was getting calls saying, “Congratulations.” That’s how closely people started doing this.

And by the way, “Home” isn’t a good recording, it’s just a good song. But it not being a good recording is what I love about “Home.” It’s like a moment. We recorded it on tape, we didn’t even know how to record on tape, it sounds like it’s made in some muffled garage. I wanted to spread the porous happenstance incidentalism of Edward Sharpe. Instead what I spread was stomp claps taken and recorded better, and that’s depressing. But “Home” is apparently a good song.”

In the caption of the video he goes on to give a more personal reason for holding “Home” in such high regard, “It’s a question I’ve asked myself plenty — is home a good song? Something I forgot to mention is I recently was asked by my 90-year-old father to play home at his birthday. He was begging as if his life depended on it so I had to oblige. There was a piano in the restaurant so I just played it like that, whole chords, just me at the piano in a restaurant at noon. I’ll try and find a recording of it, but it turned into just about my favorite version of the song. In fact I keep thinking maybe I should release a version of it. Anyway, that’s when I made up my mind that Home, the bones of it at least, are great. It’s a good song.”

Photo Credit: Nicole Olmsted