365 Days of Song Recommendations: Dec 26
You Don’t Know How It Feels — Tom Petty
I’d consider myself somewhat of an expert on break-up concept albums — Damien Rice’s O, The Cure’s Disintegration, Joni’s Blue anyone? All on repeat for life. But there’s one that stands out for me, based mostly upon the context in which it sits in my life. First semester freshman year at Ohio State. Dropped as a blue collar Cleveland kid into a massive gritty campus in the center of what to me, at the time, was a big thriving city. High school girlfriend still at home, the two of us doing that cliche shit of fooling the other into believing we’d make it through the transitions.
Three days, a bottle of generic vodka, and one party later that was the end of that.
I knew it was over a few months before I said it out loud, and I learned the hard way that delaying the inevitable made the final act no less challenging.
That’s about when I heard Wildflowers for the first time.
Another three days locked in my dorm room, a bottle of generic vodka, and a hundred spins of the album — technically, back then, it was after vinyl was cool and before it was cool again, so let’s be clear that it was a cassette tape that I basically wore out.
My confidence wavered based on the track. First song, I was bold and assured that it was over. Right move, onward.
You belong among the wildflowers
You belong in a boat out at sea
Sail away, kill off the hours
You belong somewhere you feel free
Run away, find you a lover
Go away somewhere all bright and new
I have seen no other
Who compares with you
The you was me; the you was her.
But then song two hits, and boom. Regret! More vodka! I smoked away the heartbreak.
Let me run with you tonight
I’ll take you on a moonlight ride
There’s someone I used to see
But she don’t give a damn for me
But let me get to the point, let’s roll another joint
And turn the radio loud, I’m too alone to be proud
And you don’t know how it feels
You don’t know how it feels to be me
People come, people go
Some grow young, some grow cold
I woke up in between
A memory and a dream
It goes like this, every other song.
It’s right, it’s wrong. It’s you, it’s me.
This wasn’t my first breakup, certainly not my last, and that’s how Wildflowers became the album I’d play to smoke and drink the malaise away. Now, it feels the lightest version of dark — when you consider the bleakness of my moody music choices. But back then, this was as dark as I went and damn was it a perfect escape for a “poor boy a long way from home.”
You follow your feelings, you follow your dreams
You follow the leader into the trees
And what’s in there waiting, neither one of us knows
You gotta keep one eye open the further you go
You never dreamed you’d go down on one knee, but now
Who could have seen, you’d be so hard to please somehow
You feel like a poor boy, a long way from home
You’re just a poor boy, a long way from home
And it’s wake up time
Time to open your eyes
And rise and shine
You spend your life dreaming, running ‘round in a trance
You hang out forever and still miss the dance
And if you get lucky, you might find someone
To help you get over the pain that will come
Yeah, you were so cool back in high school, what happened?
You were so sure not to have your spirits dampened
But you’re just a poor boy alone in this world
You’re just a poor boy alone in this world
And it’s wake up time
Time to open your eyes
And rise and shine
Well, if he gets lucky, a boy finds a girl
To help him to shoulder the pain in this world
And if you follow your feelings
And you follow your dreams
You might find the forest there in the trees
Yeah, you’ll be alright, it’s just gonna take time, but now
Who could have seen you’d be so hard to please somehow
You’re just a poor boy a long way from home
You’re just a poor boy a long way from home
And it’s wake up time
Time to open up your eyes
And rise and shine
’Cause it’s wake up time
Time to open your eyes
And rise and shine
“You Don’t Know How It Feels” is the 360th song on the #365Songs playlist!
