The Non-Love Love Songs of Dan Campbell
I’ve always been a bit of a late bloomer, and that applies to romance as much as it does any other aspect of my life. When I was a teenager first starting to really get into music I never paid that much attention to love songs, despite them dominating a good portion of the music I listened to (sappy first-love pop-punk songs are a constant). I just didn’t get them on an emotional level, and gravitated more towards music about heartbreak, anger, and angst; y’know, what every fifteen year old has on their mind. My first favorite band was Linkin Park for a reason.
I get it now. I remember, a few years ago, being in the midst of one of the more significant crushes of my life and listening to a particularly sappy pop-punk love song — I believe it was “I Like You” by Man Overboard, in which case sappy is a compliment — and something just clicking for me. “Wait, I get it now! I’m feeling that too!” Finally, in my thirties, I had reached the romantic maturity level of a teenager!
All jokes aside, growing up without that connection meant that, if I did end up enjoying a love song, it was one with a slightly different perspective, something unique and specific to it. A few newsletters back I mentioned “The Luckiest” by Ben Folds, and I still love this song for being specific, not only to this particular love story, but to Folds’ style, filled with rambling asides and stories of other people that end up explaining his point better than his own words ever could have alone. “Antonia” by Motion City Soundtrack builds a palpably real relationship by listing every little detail that the narrator loves about his wife, no matter how mundane. “Firefly” by Saves the Day reduces its romantic scope by honing in on a single encounter, its breathless pace (both musically and lyrically) perfectly encapsulating that spark of instant attraction and passion. Actually, Saves the Day’s 2013 self-titled album is one of my all-time favorite collections of love songs: “Remember” waxes nostalgic about those lazy, intimate days of early, young love; “In the In-Between” finds wonder in the sheer mathematical odds a relationship needs to overcome to exist, how amazing it is that these two people even met at all, much less fell in love; “Stand in the Stars” uses astrological metaphors to turn a relationship into something mythical, larger-than-life, everlasting. It makes my heart swell.
One of my all-time favorite songwriters is Dan Campbell, singer/songwriter of The Wonder Years. Now, Campbell’s not exactly known for writing straight-up love songs. The loose trilogy of albums that turned the Wonder Years into pop-punk/emo royalty are mostly about dealing with, and in their own way overcoming, anxiety and depression, about finding a place to call home and what it means to be a man. It wasn’t until what was technically their fifth album (though nobody, least of all the band themselves, really count their first) that TWY released their very first song that Campbell would classify as a “love song.”
“You in January” is just beautiful. That very first opening line, “Goddamn you look holy” — nobody in the biz curses as well as Campbell does — builds the narrator’s partner as something otherworldly beautiful and ethereal, but then the rest of the song puts in the work in building the pedestal she stands upon, with Campbell recounting every little moment in their relationship that’s made him love her, no matter how mundane, and all the ways it’s changed his life, not just in big overarching emotional ways but in the nitty-gritty day-to-day details. It’s achingly beautiful because it’s so real.
On their next album, 2018’s Sister Cities, The Wonder Years followed up “You in January” with a spiritual sequel of sorts, “Flowers Where Your Face Should Be.” Sister Cities — which I talked about in more detail in my Best Albums of 2018 round-up, as well as this essay on its first single and music video — is an album about coming together to support the people around us, and the many, many things that tie people together as human beings no matter where in the world they live. “Flowers Where Your Face Should Be” sticks to that theme admirably, finding the similarities between Campbell’s relationship and the love of a homeless couple Campbell encountered overseas, and doing so with some of the most impressive lyricism and imagery of Campbell’s career. It’s a worthy follow-up.
Yet, love isn’t just about romance. We love our friends, our family, our pets, our home and possessions, even people and characters we’ve never met. There are countless different kinds of love, and even if you’ve never been in a relationship, you’ve almost definitely experienced one of these other kinds of love. Thus, I’ve always been especially fond of non-romantic love songs, songs that are filled with love but for someone other than a romantic partner. One of my favorite examples is Saves the Day’s “The Way His Collar Falls,” a song about singer/songwriter Chris Conley’s friend Leif, but filled with such praise, affection, and attention to detail that you’d swear it’s about a romantic partner.
Dan Campbell can write a killer romantic love song, but when it comes to exploring these other kinds of love, that’s where he really shines. For a long time I didn’t realize it, until one day when I mentioned to a friend that Campbell considered “You in January” to be the first love song he’d ever written, and my friend replied, “What about ‘Don’t Let Me Cave In?’”
It’s a good point. There’s actually nothing in the lyrics that specifies whether Campbell is singing to a romantic partner or simply to a friend — though Campbell apparently claims it’s about a friend, perhaps Into It. Over It.’s Evan Weiss, who is name-dropped in the track, and I tend to agree with the interpretation — but it’s a song that oozes with love nonetheless, with gratitude for everything they’ve done for him. It’s a song about Campbell reaching out for help at his lowest and finding it in someone who will drop everything to take him on what would turn out to be a pointless trip and never once complaining, because that’s just the kind of love they have between them. “Hey Thanks” touches on similar themes — though this song does seem to be directed towards a romantic partner, it’s not specifically about romance, but again, gratitude and love for putting up with all of Campbell’s self-perceived flaws. These songs are full of love, but they aren’t necessarily “love songs” as we think of them.
Love of place is also a major theme of Campbell’s work, specifically for his home in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Campbell has a complicated relationship with home and never glazes over its flaws, but ultimately ends up consistently declaring his love for the place. “If I die, I wanna die in the suburbs,” he proclaims in “We Could Die Like This.” “Summers in PA” and “Coffee Eyes” revel in the kind of kinship that can only be found between a bunch of young twenty-somethings all reunited in their hometown. “Hoodie Weather” ends up summing it up best: “I won’t run away, cause as fucked as this place got it made me me.” For all its flaws, he can’t help to love the place he grew up in.
Running throughout all these songs, though, is Campbell’s love for his friends. A good number of songs on the Wonder Years’ first few releases are about the adventures the band have gone through together on their first few tours and the camaraderie they’ve fostered; The Upsides’ finale, “All My Friends Are In Bar Bands,” is straight-up an ode to the band’s many friends, calling them and their accomplishments out by name. My favorite Wonder Years song, “I Wanted So Badly To Be Brave,” is mostly about opposing abuse and toxic masculinity and embracing the heroic ideas we were taught in our youth, but its first verse is also devoted to building up the love, the friendship, the brotherhood between its main two characters, and part of the reason the rest of the song is so exceptionally devastating is because of the love Campbell establishes early on.
When it comes to the Wonder Years, though, the key friendship — perhaps even the key love story — is between the band and a man named Mike Pellone. Pellone was at least partially responsible for the band’s formation, but he also struggled with addiction, and died of an overdose early in their career. Suburbia: You’ve Given Me All And Now I’m Nothing’s “You Made Me Want To Be A Saint” is a recounting of Pellone’s funeral and way the love the attendees had for Pellone brought them together and helped mend fences, but it’s even moreso an ode to the man himself. It’s a blistering punk song — because “I know you would want this to be a fast one, and not some cliche ballad” — filled with inside jokes between Campbell and Pellone and references to shared passions, and one that eventually devolves into frustration and cursing as Campbell becomes so distraught over the death that he can’t even form a coherent sentence. That kind of grief doesn’t come without love. “Cul-de-sac,” off of 2013’s The Greatest Generation, is the next step in Campbell’s grief, his attempts to let go and move on despite the fact that “I thought my kid would call you uncle, I thought we’d never be alone.” “I’m letting go, cause I loved you, but I have to,” Campbell laments near the song’s conclusion, and it’s devastating.
“Cigarettes & Saints,” off of 2015’s No Closer to Heaven, is the final song about Pellone, (and if you only listen to one of the songs I’ve linked you to, it should probably be this one). Its second half is a scathing screed against the greedy pharmaceutical companies who manufactured the opioid epidemic that claimed Pellone’s life, but its first half is a tender eulogy from Campbell to Pellone. The way Campbell speaks about Pellone, the picture he paints of the man, is so full of love it hurts. When Campbell, a staunch atheist, confesses that he often pictures Pellone in heaven, a place he doesn’t even believe exists, my heart shatters into a billion little pieces.
“I'm sure there ain't a heaven
But that don't mean I don't like to picture you there
I'll bet you're bumming cigarettes off saints
And I'm sure you're still singing
But I'll bet that you're still just a bit out of key
That crooked smile pushing words across your teeth
'Cause you were heat lightning
Yeah, you were a storm that never rolled in
You were the northern lights in a southern town
A caustic fleeting thing
I'll bury your memories in the garden
And watch them grow with the flowers in spring
I'll keep you with me.”
What I wouldn’t give to have someone talk about me with even half as much love as Campbell talks about Pellone here. “Cigarettes & Saints” isn’t a romantic song. Calling it a love song at all is a major, major stretch. Yet, damn if it isn’t also somehow the best love song Campbell’s ever written.
Campbell also has a side project, Aaron West and the Roaring Twenties, whose songs recount the fictional life of the titular Aaron West (Campbell even plays live shows in character as West). Their first album, We Don’t Have Each Other, tells the story of the worst year of Aaron’s life, and all the death and divorce don’t leave a ton of room for “love” songs, but their sophomore effort, Routine Maintenance, picks up the slack big time. The album is Aaron’s redemption, one he finds through the love his friends and family have for him, and the love he has for them.
The former comes first in “Rosa & Reseda,” a song that finds the aimless Aaron moving in a with a new roommate, Rosa. Rosa and her boyfriend pick up on Aaron’s musical talents and encourage him to develop them, helping him to find the courage to form a band and take them on the road. The man Aaron becomes, he becomes because Rosa had faith in him. “When I so desperately needed a friend, Rosa was a friend.” That may not be romance, but that’s absolutely love, pure and simple.
As soon as Aaron’s band starts to make it big, though, he finds out that his beloved sister Catherine’s husband has died.
“God & The Billboards” finds Aaron making the decision to put the band on hold in order to be there for Catherine. It could’ve been a devastating decision, given that Aaron had just started to find purpose and success, but it’s one he seems to make effortlessly. He loves his sister too much to even hesitate making it, and Campbell’s description of Aaron and Catherine’s bond 100% sells the listener on Aaron’s decision.
“When we were kids I'd console you
There, afraid of the dark
You were always a seamstress
Kept me from falling apart
We held each other in orbit
Binary stars
It's gonna be hard to let go
But I can hear it in the lump in your throat
So, of course, I'm coming home
If you need me I'm coming home.”
I don’t know what else to say. That’s such a perfect, beautiful, well-spoken declaration of love.
So, yeah, maybe Dan Campbell’s only written two traditionally romantic “love songs.” That hasn’t stopped him from being one of the best love song writers of our generation.
CHECK OUT
I love pretty much everything Campbell’s put out, but if you’re checking out his work for the first time, I’d recommend starting with The Wonder Years’ The Greatest Generation. It’s probably their most accessible album, and that one-two punch of “There There” and “Passing Through A Screen Door” that opens it can’t be beat.
My buddy — and friend of the newsletter — Zach Knowlton also wrote a “One Week One Band” retrospective on The Wonder Years a few years ago. If you’re at all interested in the band, I give it my highest recommendation.
ABOUT
“Do You Know What I Love the Most?” is a newsletter from Spencer Irwin. Spencer is an enthusiast and writer from Newark, Delaware, who likes punk rock, comic books, working out, breakfast, and most of all, stories. His previous work appeared on Retcon Punch, One Week One Band, and Crisis on Infinite Chords, and he can be found on Twitter at @ThatSpenceGuy. If you like this newsletter, please subscribe and share with your friends!