How We Heard It

Songwriters know there's no place like home - for better and worse.

Home is where the heart is, and home is where the hurt is. We might get homesick when we're away and then feel trapped when we return.

For some, home is a retreat into seclusion, and they won't even answer the door. Meanwhile others never intend to darken the doorstep of their home again.

This week the hosts of "How We Heard It" look at our complicated feelings for "home" as presented in songs - and the range of emotions is expansive.

For a loving couple, home is a blissful house of joy. For an abused child, it's a place of hellish torture.

A home can be a place where dreams come true for some and a place where dreams die for others.

And for some, "home" isn't a physical place, it's a state of mind.

Whatever you think of "home," there are songs that match your feelings. From broken homes to temples of love to haunted houses, we've got it all.

As we chug deeper into fall, the sunrise comes later each day, and the sundown comes earlier. The thermometer readings are on a steady decline, and there's a pronounced chill in the rain.

Somehow those sunny songs of summer just aren't cutting it anymore.

But an awesome thing about music is there are songs for every mood, every atmosphere and every season.

So this week on "How We Heard It," your hosts bring attention to songs that you might have put out of your mind months ago but should bring back to the forefront.

Maybe you need something for Halloween, creepy and maybe festive or maybe menacing. Or something darker for when we make that long march through November and eventually come face to face with another winter.

Wayne being Wayne, he suggests songs and albums with ill-fated victims (because who doesn't want death tolls with their music?), while all the guys recommend music that's a little more introspective and quiet, if not grim.

Whether you prefer rock horror, goth malaise or emo blues, they've got you covered. And there might also be a smattering of scares lurking within the gloom.

You can't avoid it, so you might as well embrace it.

We all tend to have our favorite movie genres - whether it's action, romcoms, horror, drama or comedies. But often the movies we find it hardest to forget (for better and for worse) are the weird ones, and weird movies transcend genre and time.

On this week's episode of "How We Heard It," your movie-buff hosts talk about some of the weirdest movies they've encountered.

They go all the way back to the 1930s for the controversial "Freaks" and the beloved "The Wizard of Oz" and work their way to recent gems like the enigmatic "Backrooms," the body-horror based "The Substance" and the modern 1970s throwback "Late Night With the Devil" (keep your eye on the girl).

Some of these films were popular in the mainstream, like the comedy "Being John Malkovich" and the creepy horror flick "Jeepers Creepers," and others were critically acclaimed, such as "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover" and "Black Swan."

The foundations of these movies include everything from biblical allegory ("Mother") to folk horror ("The Lamb") to "found footage" features ("The Blair Witch Project"). Then there's "The Lobster," where you really want to match up with a partner before you, um, transform; "Rubber," about a serial killer tire named Robert; and "Bug," which might leave you questioning everything.

Then there's that mind-bending "Barbarian" that kept turning into a different movie as it went along.

They all had weirdness in common, and that made them all unforgettable.

Did any weird movies ever get stuck in your head?

Cars are our vehicle to freedom. When you get your first one, you can take off in any direction and just go wherever any highway, road or interstate can take you. What could be more liberating?

On the flipside, cars become our prison, ushering us from one obligation to the next while getting us stuck in traffic with other poor souls just like us. They require maintenance and insurance ... and we won't even go into the state of gas prices.

This week the hosts of "How We Heard It" explore songs with car themes ... and it's a little shocking just how pervasive they are in the music world. 

In the early days of cars and popular music, these songs often romanticized the role of the automobile in racing and as a status symbol and a thing of beauty.

Yet as the role of the car became intertwined with our very existence, songs about them branched out. They became linked to romance and heartbreak alike. They became symbols of sex and disaster and escape and futility.

We drive to clear our minds, we drive for a tryst, we drive in remembrance of an old flame. 

Wherever we go, we always seem to be driving. From Point A to Point B and back again, over and over. We're driving our lives away and it's driving us crazy.

But at least try to enjoy the view.

In prehistoric days - like, say, the 1970s - your local rock radio station might play a song that caught your ear. Then you might have read a review of that band in something like a Rolling Stone magazine you picked up at a newstand. And that review might have been just the motivation you needed to fork over five or six bucks at Kmart for a copy of the band's new album, which you would have listened to on the turntable that night as you read the album cover and sleeve - once you got the family room to yourself, of course.

Today, you might hear an eight-second blip of an unfamiliar song by a band you've never heard of while you're scrolling Instagram and drinking your morning matcha. In between sets during your lunchtime trip to the gym, you do your research - scanning Google, YouTube, Reddit - to find out more about the band and sample their songs. By the time you walk the dog after dinner, you're listening to your new playlist featuring songs by the band you heard for the first time this morning as well as three other bands that sound similar and were suggested to you by your streaming service.

How we find, buy and consume music has changed in just about every way possible over the years. Everything is everywhere all at once and pretty much free if you don't want to buy it, and so mobile that you can listen to it every step of your day.

But is the process of music consumption better? Has it become so accessible and random that it has lost some of its magic? What do we even know our favorite singers and musicians today? Are they now just faceless performers entertaining us in the moment? And do all of those music products actually deliver a better sound, or does music feel a little cheaper now?

On this week's episode, the "How We Heard It" hosts consider the changes music fans have gone through in consuming their favorite artists - some for the better, some for the worse - and ask themselves if they're better off now.

Are you?

Note: This week's episode of "How We Heard It" is posting two days earlier than usual, and the podcast will resume its regular schedule next week.

The world lost Dolly Parton on Aug. 25, 2026, touching off waves of public mourning for one of the most beloved artists in entertainment history.

She was a brilliant songwriter and exquisite singer. Yet there was something extra about Parton the person that transcended even Parton the artist. The tributes to Parton by fans, celebrities and world leaders circle around the same themes in describing the singer. She was magically kind and empathetic, and she was a gently fierce defender of the most downtrodden in her determined effort to love everybody.

For those who were fortunate enough to meet her in person, she was everything they hoped she would be.

On this week's "How We Heard It," veteran music journalists and friends Wayne Bledsoe and Chuck Campbell, both natives of the same corner of East Tennessee as Parton, talk about their decades of covering Parton, meeting her and talking with scores of others who admired the artist. Joined by their producer and fellow East Tennessean John T. Baker, they talk about what set Parton apart from the rest of the world and her infectious compassion for humanity.

They talk about her inspiring influence and philanthropy - and uncanny humor - through the years, and what we can learn from her at a time when the world seems to have broken apart into polarized factions.

We may have lost Dolly Parton in mortal form, but if we hold on to her spirit and goodwill, we might just be OK.

It's time to party up and party down.

End of summer blowout? Back to school bash? Check and check.

Even Halloween shindigs aren't so far away. And after that, Christmas and New Year's Eve and ...

OK, we're getting way ahead of ourselves. Besides, you don't even need to have a party if you want to listen to party songs.

This week on "How We Heard It," your hosts are checking off great party songs for the ages.

Always the methodical one, Chuck comes up with lists of guaranteed crowd-pleasing songs to suit varying age groups with diverse interests in genres and differing levels of interest in music. His rule of thumb: Don't overwhelm partygoers with unfamiliar music, yet don't bore them with cliches. Balance your playlists.

Meanwhile, John thinks a party is just the place to expose partiers to new music because folks will be loose, and his kind of crowd is likely to include mostly dedicated music fans. And Wayne would take it a step further: He's the kind of guy who wouldn't hesitate to break out a James Brown song for a crowd of Gen Zers who never heard of Brown. And Wayne being Wayne, he also shares a generous collection of offbeat party songs you've never heard of.

Obviously, there's disagreement among the guys on the best (and worst) party songs, and there's truth to what each of them has to say. It just depends on the kind of party and the guest list.

Or you could just crank up these songs in your car and take a long drive.

Alone.