I Keep Crawling Back To You

The opening, tumbling piano is almost too much to bear. You can get past the jagged little bursts of muted guitar that ease you into the song, but when the piano hits you in the soul, it's all over. That title, "Crawling Back To You", is somehow spoken by those piano chords. It sounds like someone falling to their knees. 

Somewhere between the piano and the drums, it sounds like the 90s. Not grunge, not hip-hop influences, but that weird bit of the 90s where the dinosaurs came back, as Eric Clapton creaked back into our lives, Pink Floyd put out another album, and everyone who had a hit album in the 70s put out at least one greatest hits album. The piano and drums sound like a 90s dinner party. Maybe it's a memory only I have, but it sounds like men getting into hi-fi systems in order to play the new Clapton Unplugged as crystal clear as possible, and as completely inappropriate dinner party music. It sounds like Baby Boomer torment. If you were a Boomer and your marriage collapsed, it probably did so in the 90s. Maybe, it was soundtracked by "Crawling Back To You".

It's one of those songs that uses fairly cryptic lyrics in the verses, before cutting you off at the knees with a blunt, straight-to-the-point chorus line. I keep crawling back to you. In a strange way, because they're so different, it reminds me of the biblical language in the verses of Frankie Goes To Hollywood's "Power of Love"--

Ah, fuck--sorry, the guitar solo just hit. Jesus Christ. Have you heard the live version, on the recently released Wildflowers and All The Rest? Good God. What was a fairly restrained guitar-interpretation of inner torment becomes a wounded dog howl in the live version. You could probably play anything in this bit, as long as it's in key, and as long as you just hit the thing with the right amount of force. 

Anyway. Back to the lyrics. The Power of Love. Right? "Dreams are like angels / They keep bad at bay / Love is the light / Scaring darkness away" -- it's utter bollocks, but it's well intentioned bollocks. You feel the narrator aiming for Great Art, a huge painting, a big gesture. He's reaching up at the sky and trying to take a swipe at the moon. But it falls short, and he drops the bullshit for a vulnerable, heart-stopping second: "I'm so in love with you". It kills me every time. It hits even harder later on when the bollocks is kicked up a notch: "This time we go sublime / Lovers entwined divine / Love is danger, love is pleasure / Love is pure, the only treasure" -- what? I mean, I get it, but, what? And then, again, "I'm so in love with you". He tosses the easel to the floor, kicks over the paints, throws out his notebook. I'm so in love with you. 

Tom Petty does the same here.  "The ranger came with burning eyes / The chambermaid awoke surprised" -- it almost sounds like "I Want You" by Bob Dylan, and they perform a similar trick. Here's line after line of poetry, followed by a chorus which clears that all away. I want you. I'm so in love with you. I keep crawling back to you.