The Story of the Wild Things

Music Can Tell the Story of Bipolar Mania

I really enjoy the song by Luke Combs: “Where the Wild Things Are”. My bipolar longings respond to his song. It may be a matter of taste though.

I encourage the reader to look up Luke Combs “Where the Wild Things Are” on YouTube. I’m sorry Luke never reached the number one position on Billboard Country Airplay with this song. For me, the song completely describes bipolar mania and the song has meaning to me.

I have been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder for four years now. Before that, I carried the diagnosis of schizophrenia and before that, just bipolar.

Schizoaffective disorder is the combination of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

Maybe I read too much into the lyrics but I hear the cry of someone in the midst of bipolar mania when I listen to the song.

It appeals to me on so many levels. I too have set out for California in a manic high. I don’t know why California has the appeal that it does. I suppose it is the portrait of the state painted by media. Something about beaches and the sun. I can’t describe it.

The lyrics of “Wild Things” go something like this.

He kicked started that bike one night and broke mama's heart

He pointed that headlight west

Out where the wild things are

I’ve longed to just hit the road when in mania. I can remember as a teen having that impulse to just hit the road. Those are probably the first suggestions that I would suffer from bipolar mania. That impulse to hit the road was real.

In the song, the character headed out west on a random night. Isn’t that just like a manic episode?

And his pretty girl stories

And how he bought an Airstream trailer and a J-45 guitar

Stories of manic buying and amorous affairs. It sounds like bipolar mania to me. I can identify with those impulses during mania. I once spent $1200 at a mall and promptly threw everything in the dumpster when I got home. If that isn’t the combination of bipolar and schizophrenia, I don’t know what is. It combines manic spending and delusional thinking (throwing the items in the garbage).

The title and refrain tell it all.

Out where the wild things are

Normal people have wild experiences, but the truly “wild things” may be people with psychological issues.

The young man telling the story in the song heads back east because he realizes, and these are my perceptions, that the wild living isn’t quite right.

I knew I had to move back east

Said goodbye to my brother

At the end of that summer

But I knew he'd never leave

The statistics say that people who suffer from bipolar are more likely to lose their life during mania than they are during a depressive episode.

While the song isn’t about a suicide, one needs to ask what the main character is doing on the highway at half past three. I assume it is during the night because he is on “streets that never sleep.”

And oh, they said he hit that guardrail at half past three

Lit up those streets that never sleep when the sky goes dark

As best my memory serves me, I have hit highway guardrails more than once during manic episodes.

Is it almost a right of passage for those that suffer from bipolar mania to have auto accidents?

I don’t know when the song will lose its hold on me, but for the time being, I’m pierced by the story.

I can relate to the character and I enjoy a bit of vicariousness through him.