Drew Angus’ Wrecking Ball

This old house is quiet now
But I still hear the sounds
The Stones on the stereo
Mets on the radio
Mom screaming turn it down
Dust on the shelves
Dents in the rug where my bed once rested
Tomorrow the Wrecking Ball tears it down.

The words may be unfamiliar. But the feelings resonate with anyone whose childhood home was chopped down.

Just like the one on Colony Road, where Drew Angus grew up.

I still see my family and me
Framed on the walls
My brother’s first steps
Big wheel wrecks
And the fire pit in the fall
You might see some shutters and shingles 
But to me it’s something sacred
Tomorrow the Wrecking Ball tears it down.

Drew’s parents moved there in 1994, when he was 4 years old. Four houses shared one driveway.

Drew Angus’ Colony Road home.

“It was such a fun place to grow up,” he says. “We rode our bikes to school. There was a huge ravine in the back. We played manhunt, hide-and-seek and paintball. It was the best trick-or-treating spot in town, before Gault.”

Drew graduated from Staples High School in 2007. He’s now a singer/songwriter, with a great following. This summer, he’ll join the Lumineers and Stevie Nicks at Bridgeport’s Sound on Sound Festival.

Drew Angus

He sings about what he knows. One of those is that his childhood home is now just a memory.

Oh tomorrow the Wrecking Ball tears it 
Down to the dirt in a cloud of dust
22 years and what’s left of us
Surrenders to the Wrecking Ball
Oh, surrenders to the Wrecking Ball.

Drew had so much to write about. He and co-writer Neil Herman captured some of his feelings in the lyrics above and below. But he remembers so much more: The scratches on the floor from a rowdy sleepover. The spot where orange soda spilled during a birthday party. His bedroom wall, painted like a western movie scene.

Not all the memories are great, of course. But right now, they’re all he has.

That, and his song.

If this old house could speak somehow
What would it say?
Thanks for the memories
But just like a melody
It’s my time to fade away
Take one last look
Carve your name in the door
And kick out the kitchen windows
‘Cause tomorrow the Wrecking Ball tears it down.

“Wrecking Ball” cover.

The backhoe creaked up the driveway. Drew asked if he could hop in. The operator showed him which lever to push. Within seconds, the garage came tumbling down.

Oh tomorrow the Wrecking Ball tears it
Down to the dirt in a cloud of dust
22 years and what’s left of us
Surrenders to the Wrecking Ball
Oh Surrenders, surrenders
Surrenders, surrenders
Surrenders to the Wrecking Ball.

The lyrics, he says, are “some of the truest to my heart of any song I’ve written.”

It’s tough to put himself out there like that. And countless other people are losing their homes for other reasons, like foreclosures and bombs.

But, Drew says, “this is my story.”

And — at least in “06880,” and places like this — it’s many of his fans’ stories too.

This old house is quiet now 
But I still hear the sounds…

(Click here to stream Drew Angus’ “Wrecking Ball” on Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes and other platforms.)