“We grew up fast and no-one seemed to notice. We grew up fast and we grew up alone”. All of us latch key kids can relate very easily to what he’s communicating here. Even though our parents loved and supported us, quite often we were just left to our own devices. During school holidays, once I was 9 or 10 years old we were just left at home, left to sort out our own lunches, let ourselves in and out of the house responsibly and hopefully not burn the place down trying to cook a Christmas pudding in the microwave. Top tip by the way, that doesn’t work! This idea of self-relience then morphs into emotional abandonment in the second half of this verse; “Mom and Dad Were never what we wanted”. And I think about this line differently now that I’m a parent too. We’re all just muddling through as best we can as parents, but we’re just as flawed and insecure as our kids, they just don’t see that!

If you want to check out the song ahead of the episode, you can find it here: https://youtu.be/coBgb7Ef9uo

If you’d like to read Phillip Larkin’s beautiful “Church Going”, you can find that here: https://www.thepoetryhour.com/poems/church-going

NOTE: There is some profanity in the poem, This Be The Verse.

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All music, including the theme song, provided by my very best friend Randy Woods. Check him out at https://www.randywoodsband.com

The Tom Petty Project is not affiliated with the Tom Petty estate in any way and when you’re looking for Tom’s music, please visit the official YouTube channel first and go to tompetty.com for official merchandise.

A last very special thanks to Paul Zollo. Without his book, “Conversations with Tom Petty”, this podcast wouldn’t be nearly as much fun to research. And further thanks to Warren Zanes for his outstanding book “Petty, the Biography”.

Producer: Kevin Brown

Executive Producer: Paul Roberts

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