Jan. 10, 2024

Picture it: the summer of 1993.

But don’t picture the beach or an open highway or any of those other summer cliches.

Instead, picture a guy on the precipice of leaving the family farm he grew up on for the past 19 years and worked on for the past seven. He’s driving a big, blue and white Ford TW-10 tractor, either plowing or harrowing or planting or raking or tedding a field somewhere along the Lamoille River between Johnson and Cambridge, VT.

I spent most of that summer in that stuffy tractor cab. My only connection to the outside world and the only thing that could cover the sounds of the tractor engine and whatever machinery I was using that day was the only radio station the lousy antenna picked up. MIX 96 out of Montreal.

It was an interesting summer for music. The Barenaked Ladies wondered what they’d do if they had a million dollars. Sheryl Crow described what she’d do if she could have some fun. And Snow introduced the world to his shitty brand of fake reggae.

A couple big ‘80s bands made decent comebacks in ‘93, as well. Duran Duran had their eponymous album and Tears for Fears showed up with Elemental. That’s the album with Break It Down Again.

It’s a big song. The way it sounds (just shy of feeling like a James Bond theme). The ideas in it (felt like it was written for me; still does). The length (just shy of five minutes).

As a whole, I love the song. But whenever I here the lyrics I’m sharing below, it’s a friendly reminder that some things are just out of our control, no matter how much we care.

Things like destructive storms. Or the decisions made in the halls of power. Or the absolute last stupid thing you needed to hear today.

What the song doesn’t say — and something I’ve learned in the 30 years since I was sitting in that hot, dusty tractor — is that even though love isn’t enough to stop bad things from happening, what matters most is that in the kids of the bad things and after, love is still there.

And all the love, and all the love in the world
Won’t stop the rain from falling