Patrick Wolf - This Weather

For this assignment, we were asked to pick one song and analyze why it speaks to us. It’s hard to do this, pick only one. I narrowed it down to my favorite artist, Patrick Wolf and I started thinking about what got me into him in the first place. That takes me back to Wind in the Wires—an album that to me, was life changing. When I think about that album as a whole, it has a lot of significance to me, but if I just pick one song it would be This Weather. I went back and forth between picking this or Teignmouth, but I decided to go with this one.

I couldn’t very many quality youtube videos of this song, but I did find this one, which I guess someone someone put their photography to. Patrick doesn’t have an official video up for this song. Don’t bother watching, just listen. It starts off slow, but it picks up amazingly.

When I first listened to this song, I was going through a very low period in my life. I suffer from depression and this was a particularly bad time for me. I was in a really wrong relationship that I felt stuck in and I felt like I wasn’t surrounded by anyone who understood how I felt. When I first listened to Patrick Wolf, I noticed that I really liked his sound, but also his aesthetic. I loved his style, both in his music but also the way that he presents himself. Each of his albums has a completely different feel to it, and I love each in it’s own way, but this album really spoke to me. Especially this song.

As I got into Patrick Wolf’s music more, I started to really feel that we felt the same about a lot of things. His music captured my feelings in a way I, at the time, could not and it made me feel like I had found some kind of solace. I listened to every single one of his albums about a million times, and while I think his album The Bachelor is actually musically superior, this album, and this song, always hold a special feeling for me. I remember showing it to my best friend (now boyfriend) who feels the same way about it and how we connected through it. I remember showing it to my sister who said, “I hate this, it makes me feel like I’m in a graveyard or something,” reminding me how different we really are, and how terrible her taste is. (I’m kidding. Sort of.)

I love the feel of this song, and like most of Patrick’s music, I love his use of piano and violin. However, the thing that speaks to me the most is the lyrics and the way he sings it, even down to the very audible breaths he takes which also give feeling to the song.

This song delves in to the depths of depression in the repeating line “Under this weather such shadows are blossoming” especially when he adds “in me.” But at the same time, he shows his desire to break through it, when he sings “hold back the years, hold back the hours, I want to live to see the sun break through these days.” It’s all very relatable to me, things I’ve felt and still feel.

Like I said, it’s really hard to single out this one song of his, and not all of them are this dark and depressing, some are even really inspiring and positive. I can say that I relate to at least 90% of his songs if not all of them. Finding his music was like finding a kindred spirit and it got me through some harsh times and gave me the courage to take control of my life. Every once in a while, even when I’m off listening to new things, I need a little Patrick Wolf in my life to pick me up and bring me back. It sounds silly, but I feel like he’s a friend of mine, like we know each other.