The ache of returning—“Can’t Go Home Again” is David Cassidy’s soft-spoken truth that memory is faithful but the world keeps moving.
Before we get lost in feeling, the anchors: “Can’t Go Home Again” was written by David Cassidy, Kim Carnes, and Dave Ellingson, and first appeared in 1973 on Cassidy’s Bell Records LP Dreams Are Nuthin’ More Than Wishes, produced by Rick Jarrard. The song also surfaced a few months earlier as the B-side to Cassidy’s U.S. single “Daydream” (Bell 45-386, July 5, 1973). It did not chart on its own, but the parent album became a major success—No. 1 on the U.K. Albums Chart in late 1973—and the era’s flagship single “Daydreamer”/“The Puppy Song” reached No. 1 in the U.K. shortly thereafter. These facts sketch the picture: a reflective song nestled inside a blockbuster moment, cherished by listeners even without a headline chart entry.
What sits behind “Can’t Go Home Again” is a quietly pivotal chapter for Cassidy. By 1973, the rush of teen fame had given way to a more deliberate studio life. Dreams Are Nuthin’ More Than Wishes is the album where he slows the camera, writes more, and lets tenderness lead. Its gatefold sleeve carried Cassidy’s handwritten notes about the songs, and Henry Diltz’s photography wrapped the set in warm, humane light—signals that this was meant as a personal album, not just a product. In that context, “Can’t Go Home Again” reads like a thesis statement: the boy everyone thought they knew had grown up, and he wanted to sing about the distance between who we were and who we’ve become.
The story behind the song is etched in the credits. Teaming with Kim Carnes and Dave Ellingson—a writing partnership that would yield other gems on the LP—Cassidy built a lyric from lived textures: the corner drugstore where a double-deck cone “ain’t a dime anymore,” the old movie-house man someone says “died years ago,” the town drunk still “toasting the town.” You hear the refrain as realization rather than complaint. The line that frames everything—“you can’t go home again”—echoes a phrase popularized by Thomas Wolfe’s 1940 novel, but the song makes it smaller and truer: home is not a postcard; it’s a time that doesn’t exist anymore.
Musically, the track is all kindness. Cassidy doesn’t press his voice; he lets it hover, worn-velvet and intimate, over a gentle, mid-tempo arrangement that keeps pulling you forward while the lyric looks back. That balance—motion in the music, memory in the words—is why older listeners feel its catch in the chest. It’s not nostalgia as sugar; it’s the modest courage of visiting the old streets and accepting what you find there. Producer Rick Jarrard keeps everything unshowy: acoustic strum, a warm electric-piano glow, rhythm that breathes. You can sense the singer’s face inches from the mic, telling you a story you already partly know because you’ve lived your own version of it.
Release and charts, clearly: “Can’t Go Home Again” appeared first as the B-side to “Daydream” (U.S. Bell 45-386, July 5, 1973). There’s no record of a separate chart run for the B-side in the U.S. or U.K.; it was never promoted as an A-side single. The album Dreams Are Nuthin’ More Than Wishes arrived in October 1973 and climbed to No. 1 in Britain, while the subsequent single “Daydreamer”/“The Puppy Song” hit No. 1 on the U.K. Singles Chart. In other words: the song stayed a deep cut, the album soared, and the moment around it was golden.
What it means—and why it lingers: Cassidy sings as someone who knows both sides of fame’s door and, more universally, both sides of growing up. The verses wander through familiar landmarks that don’t line up anymore, until the chorus gently admits what many of us learn in our fifties or sixties: the place is there, but the time is gone. That realization isn’t bitter here; it’s tender. The song becomes a small act of gratitude to what made us, and a benediction to keep going. If you wore out your copy of Dreams Are Nuthin’ More Than Wishes back then, “Can’t Go Home Again” is the track you return to now when the house is quiet—the one that knows your town, your losses, your stubborn, undimmable love for the past.
Key facts at a glance: Song: “Can’t Go Home Again” (David Cassidy / Kim Carnes / Dave Ellingson). Album: Dreams Are Nuthin’ More Than Wishes (Bell, Oct. 1973), produced by Rick Jarrard; U.K. Albums No. 1. Single context: B-side to “Daydream” (Bell 45-386, U.S., July 5, 1973); no separate chart entry. Era single: “Daydreamer”/“The Puppy Song” U.K. No. 1 later in 1973.
If time has taught us anything, it’s precisely what Cassidy sings here: you can visit the old neighborhood, but you carry the real home inside you. That’s the glow of “Can’t Go Home Again.” It doesn’t scold you for yearning. It sits with you, remembers with you, and then—gently—walks you back to the present.