American Songwriter is happy to premiere this video, “Take Me Home,” from the new album Memento by Ian Gothe, which is being released on February 7.
Produced by Gothe with Grammy-winning producer and engineer Jim Scott (Wilco, Tom Petty), it features the playing of many luminaries, including Fernando Perdomo (Jakob Dylan, Fiona Apple), Tamir Barzilay (Macy Gray, Tal Wilkenfeld), Sam Babayan (The Dirty Diamond), and Derek Frank (Shania Twain, Gwen Stefani).
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It’s his debut release on Blackbird Record Label, the California-based label started by Manda Mosher. To celebrate its release. Gothe is doing a record release show at Hollywood’s Hotel Café (Main Stage) on Saturday, February 8.
The video was directed by Martin Yernazian and filmed in different locations around the Southland, including Montrose, which is Ian’s home, as well as Flintridge, Glendale, Burbank and Pasadena. Sung in Armenian (with translated lyrics attached), the song reflects the artist’s history of being born and raised an Armenian in Iran. At 14 he started traveling the world, and eventually settled permanently in Los Angeles.
“I wrote `Take Me Home,'” said Gothe, “as an anthem for one of the defining questions of my life: ‘Where do I belong?’
“As I was grappling with emotions suspended in a loss devoid of closure, ‘Take Me Home’ grew to become an ethereal journey through dreams, memories, and imagined futures. The moment in the video when I kneel in the cemetery is meant to underscore the role of loss in fueling the human drive to belong. The sojourn throughout the video taps into the desire to escape, a desire we all have at some point, knowing full well that pain will follow in the mind, soul and heart.
“Employing the metaphor of dream and the fairytale beauty of the Armenian landscape, a reflection of what I imagine to be my soul’s home, I created a tale that captures the universal experience of longing to uncover a sense of being, all while losing that which never existed.
“With this song, I attempted to create a space to contemplate loss and question the uncomfortable ambiguity of existence. My hope is that by painting a picture of dreams and the desire to find home with enough textures and colors, that listeners can contemplate their own journeys.”
