I am being stalked through every moment by this song. It happens from time to time, a song just gets absolutely stuck deep down in my brain, more intense than an 'ear worm' and harder to shake. My mind latches on to certain tunes and lyrics and just will not let go.
I have other blog posts that I could/should be finishing right now including a painful/cathartic review of 2020, but on a tram a few nights back, in the Gold Coast, alone but surrounded by holidaymakers, travelling back to our hotel after a night with friends, this tune played again (whilst shuffling my most played songs from the last year) and sometimes listening on headphones alone when you can really concentrate on a song it just gets you. So I started to write this, while it feels so vivid.
The words are heartbreaking, especially in context of George Floyd's death in March last year, the haunting refrain (and the opening line) 'I can't breathe....I'm waiting for the exhale" made even more pertinent when you learn that Jarad Anthony Higgins, otherwise known as talented rapper, singer/songwriter Juice WRLD, also passed in a traumatic and untimely way (from a drug induced seizure) at the age of 21 late in 2019. He had so much more to give but had battled addiction, anxiety and depression for a big chunk of his short life.
Last year, mid way through 2020, Triple J featured the posthumous album Legends Never Die as an album of the week and I was mesmerised by it - I distinctly remember hearing this particular track for the first time, I was driving to work and this started playing as I parked in the multi-storey car park. There was no way I was leaving the car until the song finished, at which point I searched it out on Spotify and put it on repeat as I walked into work.
The raw and vivid lyrics in this song seem to come straight from the heart and given what happened to Higgins, how he died, what his life had been like, what his demons were, lines like:
Sometimes I don't know how to feel
Let's be for real
If it wasn't for the pills, I wouldn't be here
But if I keep taking these pills, I won't be here, yeah
...seem especially pertinent. To be so talented and so young and to not be able to win the battle against substances and mental heath issues is tragic but sadly not uncommon, especially in non-white (massively underserved) communities.
To me, Wishing Well is the stand out track on this album and absolutely sounds like a horridly portentous snapshot of a troubled and self aware young mind pondering on where his current demons and lack of help might lead. I wonder how much more music he had created before his death which may see the light of day posthumously, what a shame he didn't get to see the fruits of his labour with this album, which performed exceptionally well on the Billboard charts.
Higgins was particularly interesting as an artist to me because he refused to be categorised as one genre, he was a massive fan of emo, rock and guitar based music as well as rap, hip-hop and soul, he was a massive fan of the Beatles (John Lennon is referenced often in his songs) and was basically, at the heart of it, just a complete music addict - and I can totally relate to that.
I have voted for this track as my favourite in this year's Hottest 100, I will be interested to see how it fares and if you have never heard it, please, give it a listen, it is one hell of a track.
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