Daniel Childs

Something I haven’t said for a long time, but finally feel like talking about.

I heard this line in a song called “Free Falling” yesterday…

“All the vampires walkin’ through the valley
Move west down Ventura Blvd
And all the bad boys are standing in the shadows
All the good girls are home with broken hearts”

I respect what the writer is trying to say, to an extent.  However, this is the question I pose to Mr. Petty… what about all the good guys that are home with broken hearts??

I don’t like these lyrics because they cast an image of most guys being like raging vampires… using girls and then hurting them.  Are there guys like that out there? - yes, absolutely.  But not all of us are like that.  And another important thing is to realize that sometimes the girls are the ones breaking the hearts; every human has done something that has been emotionally hurtful to another human at some point in time.

I am not bashing or slamming females in any way.  I respect females.  I’m just saying that I think society paints this picture of most guys being heartbreakers, leaving girls hurt and distrusting.  And while I know that does happen, the problem I have is that society makes absolutely no mention of the rest of us guys - the ones that are not out to hurt girls… we are the ones who seek to treat them with respect and take care of them.  Society does not acknowledge our existence on this planet, whatsoever.

I wonder if maybe most girls are only attracted to the bad guys, which is why they end up with broken hearts.  Maybe there’s some sort of quality the bad guys have that us good guys can’t measure up to, leaving us alone and heartbroken by the girls who want the bad guys.  And of course, society refuses to acknowledge all the decent guys who stay home on a Friday night sad because some girl ditched them.

I repeat that I am not in any way bashing the female population.  All I know is that I am a 24-year-old, attractive guy with a good job, and I have been seriously hurt by more than one female in the past year and a half (in spite of how well I treated them), and am constantly getting turned down and rejected by females… for some reason unknown to me.  And I have a few close friends who also fit this same description, and they are extremely decent guys.

So the bad guys are out hurting the girls, and the good girls are staying home in their sadness.  Meanwhile, those same girls hurt the good guys, and no one on earth has any idea why.  Tom Petty, write a song about that.