(To truly appreciate this post, please start playing Tom Petty's "Here Comes My Girl" now)By springtime, 1981, I was really a working musician. I'd made my living almost exclusively by playing guitar and singing for almost 4 years. I'd sojourned across the country, from job to job, from Missouri to North Carolina, up to Canada, down to the Deep South, here, there, and everywhere, anywhere they would pay us to play, first in this band, and then in another. My motto was, "whatever it takes." Even in my home town I didn't have a real residence; sometimes I just slept on my friend's couches, 'cause I would surely be on the road again soon. Sometimes I took a day-job, only to leave again as soon as I had a chance to make my living as a guitarist again.
Then I met her. The girl who made me think, maybe, there was a better life to be had just staying put; maybe the sacrifices demanded by a life on the road were really too much. Maybe I could still be a musician without sacrificing every other part of my life to the pursuit of fame and fortune, maybe being a musician was something I just WAS, without demanding that I do nothing else. She made me think, maybe I should go back to college, maybe I could do something else with my life, maybe I'd be happy doing that other thing...
While I was still working as a musician, Tom Petty brought this song out..."Here Comes My Girl"...it was totally up my alley. I worked it up, pitched it to the band, got the nod, and we played it a few times. Then, unexpectedly, the band decided I wasn't being serious enough, and I was invited onward.
No worries; I didn't want to go their way, anyway...I had My Girl, and I was actually looking forward to staying home, having a home, staying with My Girl. Except, she was leaving town, going away to college. Okay, I could still make a home for us here, that she could come home to, except that's not what happened, either. I know I don't need to lay it all out for you, this is a story as old as boy-meets-girl. The soundtrack for my "Dear John" letter was "Here Comes My Girl".
How could I have been so wrong?
Was I so wrong? There are no guarentees in life; maybe when I was really ready to settle down, I managed to pick the wrong Girl. All I can say with certainty is, when I met My Girl, I knew I was ready to really change my life, no holds barred, and, indeed, despite her abandonment, I went back to college, got a degree, and moved on into the rest of my life.
And, of course, there have been some other Girls in my life since then; that doesn't lessen the impact of That Girl, and the impetus that moves me to write about her now, because some musician friends have asked me to play "Here Comes My Girl" with them.
And I will, because, at the very core of me, some recondite part of me, still plays "Here Comes My Girl" for her. It always will.
It's hard to judge other people's intentions. She obviously wasn't as serious about you as you were with her but that's often hard to grasp.
ReplyDeleteShe also looks pretty young. Youth means ever changing ideas about life and maybe she just wanted to move on. I saw that constantly while I was in college. Relationships came and went like water to many people.
The important thing was you went ahead with your education and life.
Yes, she was only 19. And yeah, I think we all have changing ideas through those years; very few of us truly know our hearts and minds at that age. We are still friends, she and I. Rather like that previous post of mine, this one arose from all the thoughts and feelings hearing that song brought.
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