When I Get Home, I’ll Take A Drive
Take a spin around my hometown set to a soundtrack of new Solange
After some time away, returning home colors my perspective in richer hues. It is a joy to return to somewhere of importance and reclaim a feeling of being known again. As I have grown in age I have developed more mindful preoccupations, and my transit time feels hastened. What once was crawling desperately down the freeway in a rush to get somewhere is suddenly gone in a flash, and I have wiped the landscape from my memory in favor of dreaming of my eventual destination. I live somewhere else now, so “home” is more a memory than a habitation. “Residence” is where I live. I pay rent in another city. I don’t fill up my car weekly after hunting for a gas station, at times strangely far apart from each other in a city known for oil and convenience, both in abundance.
Coming home also carries significance in the resonance of the actual trip — my purpose for going back is never as two-dimensional as “needed a break and wanted to visit,” though I might always want it to be. I return for occasions. For something to have occurred and warranted my visit might mean any number of things in passing, but the happening holds weight. I’m coming home for the purpose of doing something. In that way, it stands as a task to be accomplished unlike the getaway it could have been from the start, had it been planned for another time. Another occurrence. I try to absorb the gravity of coming home now and transfer it into productive thought. I appreciate that Solange would like to convey Houston is someplace special to come home to.
After beaming in the glory of a full-length live performance, my attention was transfixed, never to be removed from the evolving luminary artist from Houston, Texas. Solange Knowles dropped When I Get Home on March 1, closing Black History Month and opening Women’s History Month with an invitation into her fourth studio album, an ode to the capital of the South. In the fashion of her first three records, the fourth is a balloon floating even a little further away from the nucleus of pop music and R&B. It is now her artistic signature to pave her own lane, and watching her lay a trail is becoming exciting with each successive project. Her creation begets further creation and fuels mad inspiration; the energy in the album is nothing short of illuminating.
I have visions, vivid in detail, of driving endlessly around my hometown inspired by the freedom in this album. I got my drivers license at a time when I was traveling almost 60 miles round-trip to school daily. I had friends that lived 25 miles away from me and from each other. When I worked in the summers, it was another 50-mile trip there and back. I drove for Uber when home for breaks in college. I made it a necessary objective to learn as much as I could about where I was from — what are the other neighborhoods like? All of them? I can conjure the sights as vividly from 1,400 miles away in my memory. So come along for another ride with me as I share where I took a mental trip while listening to When I Get Home.
“Things I Imagined”
I’m starting the drive by backing out from the narrow driveway alley at my West Montrose apartment that I shared with my boyfriend and the last place I lived in Houston (it took seeing things I imagined to safely exit the driveway…that alley was not meant for an SUV). We’re in the car, out of the driveway and down the street — South on Dunlavy then take Westheimer to Greenbriar (~can’t make a left on Shepherd~) to get to 59 where we’ll make a left on the feeder and get on the freeway (got that?). By now, it’s dark outside, and you’ll notice ribbons of color in the distance, crowning the usual glares of white and glints of red before you. Prismatic lights illuminate the six bridges at Hazard, Woodhead, Dunlavy, Mandell, Graustark and Montrose.
As Solange sings of seeing “things [she] imagined,” I pass along this highway softened with vegetative barrier walls and gaze upward at the spectrum. The song breathes; there are short pauses like gasps for air, perfect to fill the darkness between bridges. There’s plenty of room here to settle in and cleanse your mind, readying it for a listen to a record you’re going to want to remember. John Key convulses into a celebratory explosion on the keys and drives this song toward a transcendent place of light, literally, as Solange sings of taking it on. A quick flash of “S McGregor” follows, alluding to S MacGregor Way in the Third Ward where acclaimed actresses and family friends Debbie Allen and Phylicia Rashad lived; a sample from a 1987 televised special includes each woman reading aloud excerpts from a Pulitzer Prize-nominated collection of poems, Spice of Dawns, by Vivian Ayers Allen, their mother.
Take 45 South to 610 West — South Loop.
“Down With the Clique”
It’s the South Loop we’re cruising now. The night has continued to offer empty left lanes. Take in the sights to your right: the almighty Astrodome, defunct yet ever legendary, and NRG (formerly Reliant) Stadium, a less-subtle, less-renowned, generally less-impressive monolithic neighbor to the west. These creations stud the earth like two blocky pimples, obscuring an otherwise flat landscape of residential neighborhoods with swarms of eventgoers and their trucks and their Uber XLs.
38 miles. That’s how long the 610 Loop wraps its congested arms ‘round the city of Houston. That’s almost how many times Solange sings the word “down” in “Down With the Clique”, a rippling and reverberating piece of music, very close to the form-in-song equivalent of skipping rocks off the shores of Buffalo Bayou while getting wasted. She takes a really long bubble bath and lives in this groove, letting it hypnotize her as she speaks. Tyler, The Creator provides additional vocals and keys to an ample and mesmerizing effect; like any natural leader, Solange shepherds her collaborators into their most natural home in her record, ensuring her idea is realized by the exact person who can help her realize it. We’re lauding her here for the vibe, like the vibe of the scene from this span of the drive. It’s spacious, speckled with little happenings like the small guitar licks or synth spins, or like the Cavender’s Boot City, or the Pappasito’s flashing neon lights at you, begging your patronage. All along, it’s reminding those of us from the Space City to stay with our roots and not drift too far into the atmosphere: we were down with you. Don’t forget Houston; it made you who you are.
“Way to the Show”
I’m exiting Westpark and taking the feeder under 59 to Richmond, where we’ll make a left and head further west. Richmond outside the Loop is home to a number of late night dancing clubs, and one is sure to be spinning “Way to the Show” tonight. It owns a sticky and addictive beat that warbles along in fantastic funk, a delicious ode to candy paint and gettin’ it.
Solange is beckoning her audience, using the “words” part of her vibe here to sexualize the candy-painted slabs that prowl the streets in juxtaposition to herself, her body, and her sexual prowess. Cassie fills backup duty and lifts the vocal to a higher shelf, adding the perfect timbre to match the instrumental.
As the song draws to a close, a shotgun cocks again and again and a sunburst synth bleeds urgently like a siren as if Solange had actually murdered the beat. If the beat’s not dead and it’s not past 2 yet, I don’t mind if we take a detour on this drive and stop at Wild West to put on this song, two-step and get low to it in some sequined cowboy hats and boots. You can get it.
“Stay Flo”
You might want to stay at the club a little while longer for this one before we leave. “Stay Flo” sinks in like fang teeth, each additional synth biting a little deeper. The attitude here summons Brandy, Terry Ellis of En Vogue, Kelly Rowland, Aaliyah, Tracy Chapman and more that might have shaped Solange’s vision of flowing in a lane all her own (in life, or on a Houston freeway). In her layering work, Solange the Producer harmonizes and complements with yodels and yelps, at once reminiscent of the heights of the divas of 90s R&B and the persistence and emotional instability of 90s country music. So many disparate threads are woven together throughout daily life in Houston and “Stay Flo” finally gives us a jam to get down to about it.
Pop your top for this one if you’ve got a convertible though, for real. We’re waving to everybody, dancing and getting down. We’re on Westheimer now and it’s sunset (you stayed at the club that long?!). I’m in my head and totally focusing on this music; I am blasting the song, my speakers are falling apart and I’m still turning it up, screaming, “AY, AY AY,” and I am driving away from the most perfectly caramelized-orange-with-a-squeeze-of-cherry sky I’ve ever seen. I’ve chosen to drive up Westheimer for all the endless seas of neon that will blur together and perfectly encapsulate you losing your mind to this Metro Boomin’-assisted song as you repeat it uncontrollably and the daylight slips away.
“Dreams”
I grew up a little girl with dreams. “Dreams” is chronically simple — you can memorize it on the first go ‘round. But along with the whole album, that’s not really the point. Vibe sustains whimsical rule over the music and lifts the lyrics to a realm where they fuse with her voice, wholly becoming another instrument in the composition.
From where you were, take Westheimer ’til it turns into Elgin, and make a left on the 59 feeder. Take it to 45 and make a right, where you’ll get on and exit Telephone Road, 43A. After a right on Munger Street, cruise by The Orange Show on your left: a rousing, whimsical and kind of fucking scary art installation and monument created by Houston mail carrier Jeff McKissack over a 24-year period until 1980 when he passed away. Since that year, The Orange Show Center for Visionary Art has grown from McKissack’s “Beauty Parlor” to a devotional home for some of the most imaginatively lucid creations ever created.
This distinctive devotion to preserving art that’s most precious drives at the core of “Dreams” and expands the larger message — persist, and persist further: dreams will come to you, even if they take a long time. As the song ends, it transitions to an outro produced by Earl Sweatshirt that swangs low and sets us up perfectly for the following interlude and the next song.
Take a right on Carrolton Street, a right on Lidstone Street, and another right on Old Spanish Trail. Take that for a ways then hang a left on Almeda.
“Almeda”
Almeda Road cuts Houston arterially from Midtown past the Medical Center and out to the Southeast. As you roll through some of Houston’s heart and soul you’ll take a left on Almeda Genoa Road and cruise east ’til you find Almeda Mall — it’ll take some navigating to get there, as Almeda Genoa meanders a bit, stopping and starting, but eventually, the mall will pop up on your right. Post up in the parking lot and pop the trunk. “Almeda” is the Pharrell-produced centerpiece of When I Get Home and it’s an absolute masterstroke. It’s a song for celebration, it’s a song of unity and it’s a song that, without asking, makes me shut up and pay attention. It’s an event for the celebration of black faith and it’s an invitation to others to learn and to appreciate. Playboi Carti and The-Dream add their own flavors to this drank, and good luck getting the hook out of your head anytime soon.
Solange’s world is one where she is entirely in control, one where she commands a power that is introspective and precious, not roaring and boastful. It allows her to create works that both advance her agenda and defy any expectation or definition imposed upon it by anyone else. “Almeda” radiantly continues this streak and will lift you up when you’re in need of it.
“Time (is)”
Time is too many things. Fleeting, crucially. Solange languishes toward a conclusion on “Time (is)” and the instrumental runs toward one, too. After expelling some energy on the trials of running from feelings of inadequacy, or of running out of time, she embraces in the realization that time is, in fact, all we have. You’ve got to know, she and Sampha sing over and over, through a rousing piano run and a crashing drumbeat that expands and dazzles like a galactic visual on the ceiling of the Baker Planetarium in the Houston Museum of Natural Science.
For this song, I chose to peel out of the Almeda Mall parking lot and head up 45 North to 59 South, taking the exit for Fannin Street. It’ll take you across a street called Binz (more on that one in a little bit) — and you’ll make a right there. In one block it’ll turn into Bissonnet and we’ll cruise through Houston’s sleepy Museum District. Oak trees fill the canopy above and trap humidity, making the neighborhood feel lush and heavy. Slip in-between kazillion-dollar homes to speed by Houston’s most prized museums. The architecture lifts and refracts as the music does on “Time (is)” and it can be hard to keep track of where you’re going, but that’s part of the fun of being along for the ride.
From Bissonnet, make a right on Kirby Drive and take it ’til it turns into Allen Parkway — then make a left on Waugh.
“My Skin My Logo”
For “My Skin My Logo”, Tyler, The Creator reappears in a production that is waxed, glossy ’til it shines like the candy paint, wood grain and swangers on the whip Gucci Mane touts in the song’s phenomenally trippy breakdown. With assists from Steve Lacy, Jamire Williams, John Carroll Kirby and John Key, Solange and Gucci trade descriptive one-liners in a sound that’s relaxing and warm, like the color orange. “Gucci like to slang, Gucci like to bang,” Solange croons in a post-blunt sigh; “Solo like to shop, Solo bought the mall,” Gucci retorts, then talks of her throwing it all at the strip club. They’re having fun together and the energy bubbles lighter and brighter here than most other places on the album. We’re not brooding and believing and mystifying, we’re just enjoying.
Cross under I-10 and take in the splendor of Heights Boulevard, the root from which the Houston Heights spring outward. The boulevard is lined with Craftsman bungalows and turn-of-the-century Victorian mansions colored like cotton candy, shaded by heavy oak trees and dotted with cafes and private practices. Make a right on East 20th / Cavalcade, and hang a right on Airline Drive, “[come] down hard, [come] down clean” if you want to stop for late-night Mexican food at Spanish Flowers or Teotihuacan before we finish our drive. Afterward, make your way back to Cavalcade, take a right at 45 and get on heading south, toward downtown.
“Jerrod”
After a fweaky intro sampling an Alexyss K. Tylor video and the intro to Rotary Connection’s 1968 hallucinogenic romp “Turn Me On”, Solange begins “Jerrod” with a gong and Stevie Wonder-esque chords that go down smooth. Her ethereal falsetto glides across the synthesizers in a track that credits “all lyrics and melodies” as written by Solange.
In her epic, black cowboy-centric accompanying film, Solange erotically dances under the full moon before a masked form to the circling synths and chants closing this song. The image casts Solange in gauzy light, draped in diamonds and reflecting shine. Her plea in “Jerrod” is to a hesitant lover; she lists how many different ways she could bare her soul, climaxing in a dazzling repetition: “Give you all the things I want.” It’s a powerful crux between self-empowerment and self-abandonment: to share your depth and your darkness with another, unknowing of the response, but totally giving into a dream.
As you approach downtown Houston from the north, notice the immensity of what lies before you and how it simultaneously seems contained, gripped in a lasso of freeways and tightly squeezed. Rip right through the middle on 45 South, passing the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart and the Main Street Metro and exit 59 South. Take the Fannin exit — but this time, a left on Binz.
“Binz”
So we’re back. Binz to the right becomes Bissonnet, as you took a few songs back. Take that left instead, and Binz reveals itself as a vibrant and stunted little interruption, continuing on to become Calumet Street east of 288 just a few blocks down. You’ll notice the colorful Children’s Museum on your right with its whimsical outdoor spaces and rippled aluminum paired with bright hues. Head down the street and you’ll notice townhouses, apartments, eateries and a barber shop or two. Hidden behind these museums are tight-knit communities of Houstonians who are conjured on “Binz”, a stellar album cut with a 100% equally enjoyable music video to match.
Think: kids rolling down the street on their bikes with their friends on the handlebars and the pegs. The neighborhood is alive with people; you grab an iced tea to sit out on the patio. Shakin’ your ass a little bit. Animal Collective’s Panda Bear creates a swirling loop and bop on the drums with a hi-hat; it’s incessant repetitiveness easily takes over a listener that is weak, or willing. At just under two minutes, you might not even make it down Binz before the song ends. Just repeat it.
Take a left on the 288 feeder and get on; head north, merging with 59 and eventually exiting I-10 East for a slight detour as we head to our next destination. When you reach the Beltway, take the exit for the southbound side.
“Beltway”
As a comment pointed out on the Genius lyric page for “Beltway”, the song’s delicate instrumental really does replicate the bouncy void created by the sound of concrete barriers flying by, windows down, on Beltway 8. To me, they instantly transport to the Ship Channel Bridge, a toll bridge over the Buffalo Bayou as it widens and meets several other waterways, travels through a network of bays and exits to the Gulf of Mexico.
The Sam Houston Ship Channel Bridge is monstrous, rising 18 stories above the water and bringing drivers traversing the Channel even closer to the heavens. On clear nights, the bridge provides a view of Houston’s industrial underbelly — cloud factories of sorts, billowing sulfuric smoke lit up amber yellow by the compound lighting across the landscape. It’s breathtaking to behold and underneath a full moon, it’s the loneliest place in the world. Solange insists, “You love me,” but we don’t know who she’s talking to. We don’t even know if they love her back, and it’s clear she doesn’t know, either. “Don’t, don’t;” she fades in and out of breath. This song is an exasperated reversal of “Things I Imagined” where Solange is lost, drifting and not hopeful in the way she was earlier on the record. Here, we are very much alone.
“Sound of Rain”
Rainwater is elemental to daily life in Houston. Some seasons, it seems to come nearly every day and memories of sunny skies can grow blurry, hard to recollect. My first time with a flat tire was on the I-10 HOV lane in the rain, driving home with a friend after school. I had to navigate floodwaters on Washington Street to mail my taxes on-time in 2016. And then Harvey came.
Ephemeral storms are aplenty, but the single characteristic that persists is the sound of the rain. No matter the weight or speed, a Houston rainstorm carries a unique rhythm and cachet. Pounding on your windshield while driving too fast down the freeway, or hitting your windows at home while drifting off to sleep; the “sound of rain” helps “let go of the pain” to Solange, who wraps her lyrics up with backing vocals by ABRA and Steve Lacy, and production that captures the bliss of a heavy rain bouncing off a tin roof.
Therefore, it’s important you pause your drive until it starts to rain. Don’t worry, it can’t be farther away than a few hours. But the atmospheric pressure mimics the humidity held in the sinewy synths and shimmering blips and chimes and is the perfect vessel for the vibe Solange is creating here. The cleansing power of rain is what she wishes to utilize, knowing fully that rain terrorized her hometown less than two years ago. It’s her willingness to move on and change that makes her a vanguard artist and a trendsetter rather than a follower, and it’s a perfect jam to wind down her vision on When I Get Home.
“I’m a Witness”
Closing her book and turning it back to the cover, Solange ends where she began her journey home: taking on the light. When you’ve finished reveling in the rain and made your way from the Beltway to US Highway 90 Alternate, take it north until it becomes Main Street. Back inside the Loop, you’ll find Rice Univerisity’s campus and in it, the James Turrell installation “Twilight Epiphany” Skyspace. The Skyspace is a perplexing vision to behold but once inside it, the calming use of space, light and texture pacifies you to sleep in one of the benches lining its interior parameter.
The Rothko Chapel, a Museum District staple home to fourteen large works by Mark Rothko, is featured in Solange’s When I Get Home companion film as she dances in front of the massive black canvases. The space inside is heavy, centralistic and interior-focused. Talking is discouraged and hardly possible as each viewer is overwhelmed with tangible echoes of the depression that drove Rothko to suicide during the chapel’s construction in 1970 (it was completed a year later). In Turrell’s Skyspace, the white dome is a blank canvas for experimentation by students of the Shepherd School of Music just adjacent. It is acoustically designed for musical performances and represents creation and curiosity. Talking is not discouraged and conversation is haptic, is present.
Solange in “I’m A Witness” embodies a vessel for taking on the light. She manifests success: “And I won’t stop ’til I get it right / Goodnight.” Success here is the mystery: what is she really trying to accomplish with this record? How is it successful for her? It stands as a lean-induced fever dream of a Houston that used to be, and a Houston that is yet to come. The album ran the risk of not making sense to non-residents but it’s hard to imagine Solange noting that with importance. As a multimedia artist that owns her image in every capacity, she does what she wants. She does not subject herself to the vision of others, nor does she force her collaborators with an iron fist. She shepherds their direction (her collaborators describe her “[letting] the tape roll” to create meandering freestyles to be edited down at a later time). Her vision is organic, and organically Houston born and raised. When I Get Home closes as an uplifting and cleansing listen at just under 40 minutes. It’s healing like the sound of the rain. It’s energizing like the strippers you gave all your money to. It’s nervous like the thrill and frustration of chasing a timid lover. Best of all, it’s revitalizing like a trip back home.
Stream Solange’s album below on Spotify and Apple Music.
