Homemade

Album: Greetings From… Jake (2019)
Charted: 39
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Songfacts®:

  • "Homemade" is a celebration of a rising in rural America. It finds Jake Owen reflecting on the elements of home that shaped his identity.
  • The song, written by frequent Toby Keith collaborator Bobby Pinson with Ben Goldsmith, Drew Parker and Jared Mullins, plays on the difference between "homemade" and "home made."

    Home made me love a dirt road
    Home made me crave some ice-cold homemade sweet tea only mama knows how to make
    Yeah, homemade
    Home made me love a small town
    Home made me wanna settle down in a home made for the two of us
    Everything I love is homemade


    Jake Owen said at an album preview that as soon as he heard the track, it "hit home" to him. "We're all homemade in a way or another," he added.
  • Back in the 1940s, Jake Owen's grandfather spotted the singer's grandmother walking down the street in Mumfordville, Kentucky. They became pen pals, fell in love and got married. The song's music video shares the sweet story of how Owen's Granddad and Nanny fell for each other through a series of letters. At the time of the clip's release, his grandparents were 95 years old and had been married for over 70 years.
  • It was Owen's songwriter friend Jared Mullins who first played him the song. Mullins didn't have a record deal at the time, and Owen wanted to help him, so he asked him to play his best songs that he hoped somebody would hear and cut. The singer recalled to Billboard how when he got to the chorus of "Homemade," it mirrored how he'd been raised.

    "I was like, 'That's my life!' My mom made the greatest sweet tea ever growing up, so did my grandma. And I'm just a homemade guy: I have a twin brother, my parents have been married for 40 years. My grandparents are still married; that's why I depicted the whole video around my grandparents' love story."

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