I've Been Waiting

In the earliest apocryphal scribblings about Divine Discontent, this song was called "I Don't See Why." The record that was released nudges the mood by moving from a positive circumstance with a negative interpretation (that is, "you love me," but "I don't see why") to a negative circumstance with a positive interpretation (a deadly silence after an argument, but still, hopefully, "I'm waiting by a phone for the blessed ring..."). The waiting, Tom Petty says, is the hardest part, and the blessed ring never really comes in the song's lyric. No deus ex payphone, just the hope for change as Nash breathes life into Slocum's head-just-barely-above-water optimism: "I'm changing who I am / 'cause what I am's not good."

"I've Been Waiting" is probably the best song on the album (or at least a tie with "Still Burning"), and the most equisitely crafted. Slocum's introductory riff is instantly memorable, and the way he flips and echoes it during the verses is just so damned pretty. The lack of acoustic guitar doesn't hurt the song's texture, thanks to the gorgeous chords ringing out from what I believe is the Fender 12-string. The orchestra pad begins to swell at the halfway point, just after we arrive in "the land of waits." 

Digression, by the way:  what is the "land of waits?" Thematic resonance with the song's title, of course, but why the awkward syntax? The part of me that reads Divine Discontent as autobiography makes me want this to be a reference to Tom Waits, thereby placing Slocum in Northern California ("the land of Waits," where the man lives) as in "A Million Parachutes," and thereby placing the song later on the grim timeline of divorce at which the album subtly hints. It's hard to say.

My favorite moment in the song is the tiny, tiny explosion of a fill that Dale Baker bursts out with to kick off the final reprise of the chorus. Baker's playing on all post-TBM Sixpence songs is a study in tasteful restraint, but the way he manages to make a meaningful cresecendo out of four notes on the snare drum (after building up with a couple of -- tasteful, of course -- tom hits) leaves me in awe every time.

Finally, it's Jerry Dale McFadden's crystalline keyboard runs that provide the blessed ring, note-by-note chords that chime out throughout the chorus, wavering and lingering as Nash's last words underline the self-doubt: "No, I don't see why you should."

Art: "The Waiting is the Hardest Part," photo by Chris Osburn, from London Daily Photo blog.