Oh god - where to start with this one. It's been a shitty week in America - a shitty week in many places on the planet. Aside from the insanity of the Las Vegas mass shooting, Tom Petty died. The minute I heard, I knew what this week's track would be.
There's going to be a million words written about Mr. Petty and what he gave us in his too short time and I'm hardly qualified to add to them. What I can do is to tell why this song is perfect for the grief list and why, if you haven't heard it for a while, you should give it spin.
I don't know how it is for you guys but there comes a point in the grieving process where you just have to stop - you have to give it up - you have to change the status quo - stop making decisions and go with the flow. And it's not that you've stopped caring, it's not that you want to end it all and take yourself out - but it's that you just can't bloody cope with everything and you need - well - you need anything that isn't "this!"
Of course, the scary thing at that point is you start blaming yourself for not being able to cope - you start to revisit all your mistakes, your faults, your character flaws and all the bad things about you, all the while being unable to escape that incessant nagging grief that threatens to drag you deeper and deeper down.
My religious friends turn to their god at this point - it's a beautiful thing - they have their faith and they give themselves over to the deity and ask for help, and they get it. The ability to look for succor from a higher power is inherently human and I'm no different. But I don't have a particular canon, a particular religious structure that I adhere to - what I have is music and songs like this.
I am the lyric: the little bit of self hate and bad behavior - hell, I live in Reseda (and no, there actually isn't a Freeway here,) I've walked down Ventura boulevard and glided over Mulholland with a girl's name in my head, but it's the hook - the "Free Fallin''" - the decision to not take control, to let it go - to as Mr. Petty wrote "Leave this world for awhile," that helps me, that allows me to drop everything and just get lost in the feeling.
Thank you Tom Petty.
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About the Curator - Andrew McCluskey
The first visual memory I have is that of the white upright piano in Singapore, Hell and the dark forces lived at the bottom, Heaven and the Angels at the top. They would play battles through my fingers and I was hooked.
Although I've always played, I haven't always been a musician. Most of my twenties were spent working with people, buying and selling and learning how the world works. It was in my thirties that I came to America and focused on music and began to develop music2work2.
Music to Grieve to is often sourced from entries at The Grief Directory. If you know of an organization or product that has helped you and you'd like to raise their visibility, then please tell us about them over at griefdirectory.org
