My Love Life in 6 Tom Petty Songs

In memory of Tom Petty, may I present ... my love life in 6 Tom Petty songs.

Free Fallin': I'm 9 years old and Free Fallin' is on the radio every time I get in my parents' car. I'm  entranced from its first airy strums. Scenery rolls by as my little-girl mind paints a music video set in a kingdom called Racida. In my imagination, I'm a good girl who loves horses, and a handsome boy writes my name in the sky. I feel deliciously secret longings about freeways and boys I haven't met yet. 

At school, a popular girl asks me what music I listen to. She is wearing a New Kids on the Block jacket covered with pancake-sized pictures of the band members' faces. I tell her I love "Free Fallin'," and she snorts, "You like Tom Petty?!" in a way that instantly tells me that I have given  the wrong answer.

I listen to "Free Fallin'" the next time it comes on the radio. Again, I'm swept away. Already, the line "The good girls are home with broken hearts" speaks to me in a way that New Kids on the Block never will.

Free Girl Now: I'm 29, and I'm fed up. The boyfriend I've adored with puppy-like devotion has let me down for the last time. I call my buddy James and tell him I've decided to break up with my boyfriend, for real this time. James makes me a celebratory playlist, and "Free Girl Now" is the track I play again and again.

It's hard to stay broken up, especially when my ex keeps trying to come back, but Tom Petty makes me feel like I can -- like I DESERVE --  to "Dazzle, dazzle the moon above." So I try.

Change the Locks: I fail. That same ex and I are on-again-and-off-again for several dramatic months. All the while, my dear friend James listens, rolls his eyes, and offers me the frustrated sympathy I need. Until one day, the break-up sticks. I'm ready to move on. James makes me a new playlist. This is the song I like best. The songs clangs into my apartment, blaring its mix of rage and sheer delight. I changed the name of this town, so you can't follow me down! 




  

Walls: Some days are diamonds. Some days are rocks. I am in my early 30s, and I am devastated. Recently dumped by someone I trusted, I come to the conclusion that I did not get the life I wanted. It seems cruel and unfair because I believe, with every fiber of my being, that I was born to love. 

Sometimes I have dreams at night that I've found true love, and when I wake up and realize the person in my dream wasn't real, I cry. I feel certain that I could love someone with a fire and loyalty no one's ever seen.

Instead, I go numb. I cry some more. I wish I could go to sleep and not wake up. I play this song on repeat. "You got a heart so big/ It could crush this town/ And I can't hold out forever/ Even walls fall down." 

Angel Dream (No. 4): It finally happens. 

"I dreamed you, I saw your face.

Caught my lifeline
When drifting through space
I saw an angel
I saw my fate
I can only thank God it was not too late."

American Girl:  I'm 34. I'm wearing white and sparkles and everyone I love is there. My best friends and I are on the dance floor. My wonderful family has come from far away to be with me. With us. Outside, I see my groom  standing with his friends. 

Billy floods my vision as the DJ pulls up one of the songs I wanted to hear today. Good old Tom Petty. Billy beckons me outside to pose for a wedding photo, and I dance for one more moment before running outside, through the most perfect day I've ever had. 

Make it last all night.

R.I.P. Tom Petty.

Thank you for the music.  

Nothing I Can See But You So Keep Dancing

I have a confession. Every time I hear this song, my imagination provides a music video. It's simple but vivid: just me and my Beagle Porter, dancing in our tiny kitchen without a care in the world.

The video is a scene that happened plenty of times in real life: me grinning and spinning, swinging my arms awkwardly and with happy abandon. Porter is prancing on his feet, ears flapping, his face radiating blissful devotion as he gazes up at me -- the way he always did.

I think the song strikes me this way because of this line:

 

"Nothing I can see but you."

That's how Porter loved. Porter had been abused, rescued, and nursed back to health, and he seemed to give me credit for all of it. He adored me. And judging by his clingy devotion, he didn't think he could live without me. Friends laughed if I asked them to hold Porter's leash as I dashed inside a coffee shop. Porter's whole world would grind to a halt, and he'd stare after me, frozen, panicked, and unable to function until I returned to him.

But the rest of the time, Porter was joyful. That was his gift to me: sunshine and joy at a time when I needed it most.

I will never stop feeling like I was robbed when I lost Porter. His accident was brutal and cruel and it pops back into my mind to remind me of the doom that waits around every corner, ready to take away everyone I love. Some days, it's a lot of work to fend off this feeling.

That's why I'm happy for this silly Justin Timberlake song, and all the memories of my little angel dog. Today I'm working in my yard, playing this song on repeat, crying a little, but letting my heart ache with gratitude and joy.

Can't stop the feeling, so just dance, dance, dance.

How I Fell So Hard, Part 2

To be brutally honest with you, I always wanted love more than anything else in the world.

But that kind of longing can take a toll on a person. It made me take chances on strangers. It made me give my time and trust to people who didn't deserve it. After a while, it made me feel hopeless, unlovable, and bitter.

The hardest part was that even though I was constantly searching, I was also holding out for someone extraordinary.

I knew that if I found him, he'd have to dazzle me immediately. He'd need to be sharp, and funny, and stand out from everyone else. He'd have to keep me guessing, because nothing turns me off faster than ordinary chatter.

(I hoped he'd be handsome, too.)

And somehow, if I found that man, he'd have to do something to keep from scaring me off.

Thankfully, my friend Jessica saw it from afar -- my perfect match was actually out there. She introduced me to her friend Billy. (See: How I Fell So Hard, Part 1)

Billy is incredibly handsome, and wickedly smart, and I have absolutely no idea what is going to come out of his mouth, ever. But he's also doting, and gentle, and he wears his enormous heart on his sleeve.

And that's why his blue eyes and rock star cool didn't scare me off … because he spent our first date just making sure that I was happy.

And he's spent the past year doing that, too.

But here's the best part.

It was July 5. Billy's band was playing. Everything was exactly as it was a year ago … the guys playing my favorite music at the Hard Rock Cafe, my friends singing along and pulling me to my feet to dance.

But everything was also different. Since that first show last summer, Billy moved in with me. Now, I try to put myself to bed at a responsible time but I always end up lying awake, giggling in the dark at his jokes. I wake up in his arms. I come home to his amazing cooking. I watch him take care of my pets, and I see how happy he makes them. And I learned that even when one of us is being exhausting, the other one will always say something to make it right.

But anyway. The band was playing. They stopped halfway through the show to pull raffle tickets for pairs of tickets for the upcoming Sublime show.

When Billy gave me my raffle ticket in advance, I thought, "I don't want to see Sublime." But low and behold, his friend Brian pulled my number, and I won the second drawing.

And when I went up on stage to collect my winnings, the love of my life got down on one knee … and asked me to (please!) marry him.

Yep. I'll marry him.

And then, the band asked me what I wanted to hear. I picked "Alive."

Since then, a few friends have done really sweet things for us. We've received cards, well wishes, and celebratory dinners. I feel guilty accepting their congrats. I already got what I always wanted -- a dazzling, talented, kind-hearted man. And a perfect diamond ring too!

All things change.

Let this remain. 

xo

When Banjos are the Sound of Silence

Last night, I took my dad to see Steve Martin and his bluegrass band, the Steep Canyon Rangers.

We had lots of fun.

I think my sense of what's funny was born from my early exposure to Pee Wee Herman and Steve Martin. My parents used to play Steve Martin's stand-up comedy on their record player, and I remember laughing at my mom quoting it long before I understood what was so funny (or so brilliantly unfunny) about the jokes themselves.

A request like "Please pass the pepper" could result, at our dinner table, in a giggled "Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you! Like this:



But while I grew up appreciating goofy humor, I didn't appreciate bluegrass music. There was simply too much of it around.

My dad played bluegrass music, loud, all the time. He played it on CD's, DVD's, tapes in the car, and he'd claw hammer it out on his own banjos right in our living room--always oblivious to whatever was going on around him.

I remember sitting in the back seat of the family car, eager to get in on my parents' conversation in the front, but not making anything out over my dad's tape recording of Flatt and Scruggs' My Long Journey Home, blaring out of the car speakers. 

My dad even went through a phase in which he believed that playing music at your musical instruments could condition their wood, or something like that, so he he would line up his instruments in an attentive row and play bluegrass at them when he wasn't even home.

There was no escape. In my house, bluegrass was the sound of silence.

Meanwhile, I craved electric guitars. I hated bluegrass. My mom said she did too, but joked that she wouldn't be a "bluegrass widow" and actually followed my dad to concerts.

I didn't start to soften on bluegrass until I was 24, and briefly moved from one dinky apartment into the one located above my dad's music shop. By then, my dad was successfully running his guitar, banjo, and mandolin store, and I rented a place just up the stairs over his storefront.

On quiet afternoons and evenings, the sounds of finger-plunking and jam sessions would filter up through my floors. Suddenly, I'd feel almost as safe and soothed as I did decades ago, when my mom had a pot on the stove and my dad played Earl Scruggs for the instruments in our empty basement.

And now, I have Steve Martin -- and my dad, also named Steve -- to thank for a fun night last night, one in which I tapped my toes and chair-danced and enjoyed the bluegrass tunes every bit as much as Steve Martin's goofy jokes in between.

Best of all was spending time with my dad, who almost never allows himself any fun outside of his music store. When I asked him, as we waited for the curtain to go up, what his favorite concert of all time was, he said he didn't know. I rattled off lists of my own -- best set list, best performance, most fun at a show.

Then, this morning, I received an email from my dad.

"The show was funny, and the music was very good. But most of all, being with you was special. You asked me which was my favorite concert? Last night was."

Aw.
My dad.

And, it turns out bluegrass tunes can play the songs in my heart, too.

The 4 Ingredients That Will Always Make Me Fall in Love with a Piece of Music

All of my favorite music has at least one of these four ingredients.

1. Lyrics that tell a story.
I think the best songs have some point to them besides being catchy. Don't give me a cheesy love song (or if you're going to, at least make me laugh). Sing me a story with characters, plots, and messages.

I look for lyrics that illuminate my own feelings. I'll award bonus points to songs that rally me, inspire me, pull me up, dust me off or convince me that I'm going to be okay.

When my (lousy) boyfriend of 11 years moved out, I felt confused and conflicted, but I played the subtly happy song "Tears Dry on Their Own" and wrote a music video in my head, starring me twirling around in my newly empty, sun-kissed apartment, finally unburdened with all the cobwebs of our misspent decade.  I appreciated how Amy Winehouse gave a name to the feeling of "inevitable withdrawal." I didn't love my ex anymore, but I still had to bear the withdrawal of our breakup as I learned how to be alone for the first time as an adult.

When Amy sings, "He walks away; the sun goes down," I don't picture darkness but rather the glorious glow of a blazing sunset.

Another example: One of the greatest stories I know is about a human being who is Given to Fly.  Here's what Eddie Vedder says about that beautiful song:

"[I imagined the song as] a 20-page cardboard children's book with a line on each page and a picture to go with it. It's a fable, that's all. The music almost gives you this feeling of flight, and I really love singing the part at the end, which is all about rising above anybody's comments about what you do and still giving your love away. You know? Not becoming bitter and reclusive, not condemning the whole world because of the actions of a few."

2. Grungy guitars that rock out.
I can't resist them. I feel them in my belly. They make me want to burst into a run. They make me want to shrug off my last board meeting and my last deadline and joyfully headbang like the mammal I am.  I can appreciate the perfectly-executed licks of a classical guitar song, but I'm not sure how long I could sit and watch someone coax them out. I want to watch a person grab their guitar and shred it like they're purging the demons within.

I know it's been overplayed, but to this day, I can't fathom how someone can hear the opening chords of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and not emphatically agree that the song is a cosmic gift from the universe. It's just perfect. Whether they were ready for it or not, something otherworldly just clicked the day Nirvana came up with that one.

Same thing, right here:

3. Beautiful vocals.
This one seems too easy but, oh well. I'll bliss out to Rob Zombie for Reason #2 but give me Eddie Vedder's soaring, honeyed baritone to soothe my troubled heart. It hits me like a Klonopin right in my soul.



4. Music that has heart.
I need to feel like music is sincere, like it was born because the artist had to write it whether anyone would like it or not. I like music that is confessed. I like songs that purge anguish as a means to finding light.

I think that's why I like Jill Sobule so much. I go see her every time she comes to town, and Jill has a way of making the entire room fall in love with her. She's cute and funny, yes, but also, Jill's heart is present in every one of her songs.

I always felt like Kurt Cobain's lyrics, as flippant and bitter as they seemed on the surface, were painfully self-aware and of brimming with heart.

.........................................

A piece of music doesn't have to have all of these ingredients, but if I love it, chances are it will have at least one.

Pearl Jam corners the market with all four, which is why seeing them live takes me to staggering heights of sheer bliss.

I'm going to close with a song that has Ingredients #1, #3 and #4. This is a song that put four whole years into perspective for me, and makes me cry every single time.

I Would Like to Have Drinks With Kelly Clarkson

While she's not really representative of my typical tastes, I have long wanted to get tipsy with Kelly Clarkson.

Girl just seems down-to-Earth. She can belt it, she laughs big belly laughs, and I even read an interview in which she totally owned her stinky armpits. Also, I'm a sucker for girl power-y songs. Especially "Stronger." Especially in the midst of a good break-up. 


So today I made a Kelly Clarkson station on Pandora. And I realized that Pandora must just lump Kelly in with "lowest common denominator music." And by that I mean no insult...I just mean, they play easy music that even people with no particular tastes will find easy-to-understand.


So far today, I have heard:

Bon Jovi - You Give Love a Bad Name
Survivor - Eye of the Tiger
2 Kelly Clarkson songs
Queen - We are the Champions
Journey - Don't Stop Believing

What do any of them have to do with Kelly besides being totally mass appeal songs? I was kind of dismayed. 


(Finally: a confession. I didn't vote for Kelly, back in the day. Season 1 of American Idol was the only season that I watched, or voted in, and I opted for edgier, pink haired, single mom, Nikki McKibbin.

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