Coming Home… Where It All Started *edited*

First Song I Ever Learned on Guitar…

I’m laying here in bed… in the dark… listening to my YouTube music app.
Something I do most every night.

I’ll usually pick a song to start it off… then just let it go wherever it wants to go.

Lately though… one song keeps showing up.
Random… but not really random.

So much that it’s got me thinking…

It’s the very first song I ever learned on guitar —
“Coming Home” by Cinderella, off the album Long Cold Winter.

I learned it in November of 1988.
I was 14.

I had no idea who Cinderella even was at the time…
but that season turned out to be the longest… coldest winter of my life.

Back then, I’d go to my uncle and ask for CDs or cassettes.
Every time… he’d give me this deep stare… then walk over to his collection.

You could tell he was thinking.
Choosing carefully.

He knew what I was going through.
He knew I wasn’t just listening.

He knew I was building something…
a foundation… for who I’d become… as a musician… as a person.

He’s no longer here now…
but looking back… he knew exactly what he was doing with me 😁

…

Every song on that album is 🔥.

And it’s kind of crazy…
that an album with that name would land in my hands
right before my own long cold winter really set in.

To this day… it’s locked into my personal all-time albums list.
Forever.

Back then, there was no internet.
No Google. No YouTube tutorials.
No quick tabs you could pull up

No smartphone.

I didn’t even have sheet music.

All I had was a chord book.

So I learned every chord in it…
then started figuring out scales and patterns on my own.

Trial and error.

A lot of wrong notes…
but I remembered them…
learned to avoid them.

That’s how I learned songs —
by listening…
by playing along…
by feeling it out.

Everything was different back then.

But here’s the sweet part…

Lately, when I pick up my guitar…
I feel like that 14 year old kid again.

And that’s something I lost for a while.

I’m happy it’s back.
I’m happy I’m back.

Not losing these calloused fingers ever again 😎…

I took a ride in a world… I’ll be spinnin for the rest of my life… ♩ ♭ ♮ ♯

© 2026 Bryan Loia Hudson. All rights reserved.

`’.,°~