House on a Hill

Album: The Guilty Party (2013)
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Songfacts®:

  • Jon Patrick Walker has always an actor by trade but has been writing songs for years. His debut single, "House on a Hill," reflects a lonelier time in his life when he didn't have a job, a house of his own, a lover or even a dog. He recalled the somewhat bleak time period of his late twenties in our 2013 interview: "I'd had a gig doing a show out of town and that had ended. And I was filing for unemployment benefits and having to find a new apartment. And at the time, also, my parents, who divorced when I was a kid, my mom was living with this flaky guy in this old run-down mansion that used to be a hospital and seemed completely creepy to me. And they lived there temporarily. And my dad had gone through a divorce and was living in a basement apartment of this friend of his. And so I just suddenly started writing this song about, Here the three of us are - what some might look at and say, 'Hey, your life's so free and interesting and not predictable.' But really all I wanted was a house on a hill and some stability. And that's kind of what the song came out of."

    "House on a Hill" is no longer a sad song for Walker now that he's gotten everything he pined for. He's had success appearing on numerous TV shows and in stage productions on and off Broadway. He married actress Hope Davis and they have two daughters (and a dog).

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