Andrew Recommends: “Patience” by Tame Impala

Senior year of college was pretty rough for me. I was healing from a breakup, and I was working a job on top of an overload of classes. I had a mental breakdown at a Boygenius show on the 1st of November and ending up having to drop my secondary major just so I could finish on time. I ended up going back to finish that major this past fall, but that’s another story.

Things started to turn around in my second semester. Work was starting to feel more normal, my classes didn’t overload me with homework, and I had time to go to more shows and experience more live music. However, the most important show I went to was the day after graduation, when I saw Tame Impala at Shaky Knees in Atlanta.

“Patience” was released towards the end of March, right after spring break. I listened to it because I love Tame Impala, but I was blown away at how the song actually made me feel hopeful. Hope wasn’t something I had felt for most of this school year (in all honesty, not for almost 2 full calendar years), and this song made me feel it. Two weeks later, I used the song as a reason to publicize my struggle with anxiety and depression, and getting that out in the open made me feel like I was understood even more as a person.

All of this was before Shaky Knees, though. I listened to it a lot, obviously, but not nearly as much as after that Shaky Knees performance. Seeing Tame Impala for the first time in 3 years, realizing I had just graduated college and survived the gauntlet of senior year, being there with two of my closest friends and my mom, all of it was so overwhelming. When they played “Let It Happen” to open the set, I began to tear up. When they played “Patience” immediately afterwards, I cried.

This song has power. This song was my number one streamed song in 2019, and I intend to keep listening to it for the rest of my life.

We could all use some hope.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUmV-MorIKc(Song recommendation by Andrew Gardner)