Kelly Come Home

Behind the Song: Kelly Come Home

If there is one thing that bonds people faster than anything else, it’s a shared music taste. When Kelly and I first started talking, that was our common ground. We were both die-hard Pop Punk kids.

I was the grinder guitarist playing every dumpy punk club in SoCal, and she was the quintessential Hot Topic girl—fiery, cool, and knowing the scene players better than anyone. We spoke the same language: power chords, fast tempos, and wearing your heart on your sleeve.

A few months into our relationship, Kelly dropped a piece of genre wisdom on me that I’ll never forget. She looked at me and said, "You know, it’s not real pop punk if you don’t mention hating your hometown and 'my friends' at least once."

I laughed it off at the time, but the joke stuck with me. It was the "Pop Punk Constitution"... the rules we all apparently agreed to live by.

Not long after that, Kelly took a long trip "back home" to the Bay Area in Northern California. While it was technically still the same state, looking at the map from down here in SoCal, it felt like there were a thousand miles from me to her. We were fully smitten with each other by this point and the distance hit us both harder than expected. I missed her deeply, and so, in true punk-rock-boyfriend fashion, I decided the only way to process that separation was to write a song.

That song became the very first track for The Second Messenger: "Kelly Come Home."

Breaking the Rules

Musically, the song is quintessential pop-punk—fast, melodic, and driving. I think it's ironic that the first-ever line of the first-ever Second Messenger song opens with me comically stuttering her name ("K-K-K-Kelly come home"). It might be silly, but it fits the song so well I just had to keep it. I wanted an intro that was fun, high-energy, and didn't take itself too seriously and I think it sets the tone for a song that was earnest about its feelings but playful in its delivery.

When it came to the lyrics, however, I couldn't get Kelly's joke out of my head. I realized I was writing a song about missing my town (because she wasn't in it), which is a direct violation of the "I Hate This Town" rule.

So, I decided to lean into the meta-comedy of it. I wrote the bridge specifically to address the joke she had told me months prior:

D-D-D-Darling I know that it is not punk rock to love your hometown,

but I don't think our friends would really mind if we're just taking our time...

It was my way of checking off the boxes on her imaginary bingo card. I acknowledged the "Hometown" trope and the "My Friends" trope in the same breath, essentially asking for a pass from the Pop Punk Police. I was admitting that, yeah, we’re supposed to want to leave, but honestly? I just wanted her to come back so we could drive around this town together.

The Happy Ending

The song was a plea for her to return, a promise that I’d be waiting to "lend a friendly ear" and drive around the suburbs the second she got back.

And the best part? It worked.

Kelly did come home, we continued to drive around this town, and eventually, I married the hell out of that Pop Punk Hot Topic girl. "Kelly Come Home" stands as a snapshot of that early longing—a reminder that while hating your hometown might be "punk rock," making a home with your favorite person is a whole lot better.