By the time Bob Seger released “Against The Wind” in 1980, he already had a lengthy list of hits, including plenty of songs he wrote himself. Although “Against The Wind” remains among his biggest hits, Seger later admitted he struggled writing part of the song.
The title track of Seger’s 11th studio album, Seger wrote “Against The Wind” by himself. “Against The Wind” says, “And I remember what she said to me / How she swore that it never would end / I remember how she held me, oh, so tight / Wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then / Against the wind / We were running against the wind / We were young and strong / We were running against the wind.”
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Surprisingly, Seger was unsure about one of the key parts of the song.
“The line ‘Wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then’ bothered me for the longest time,” Seger concedes. “But everyone I knew loved it so I left it in. It has since appeared in several hits by other artists, so I guess it’s OK.”
How Two Members of the Eagles Helped Bob Seger With “Against the Wind”
When writing “Against The Wind”, Seger was so unsure of the line “Wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then” that he reached out to two members of Eagles, namely Glenn Frey and Don Henley, for advice.
“The only thing that bothered me about that phrase was the grammar,” Seger says. “It sounded grammatically funny to me. I kept asking myself, ‘Is that correct grammar?’ I liked the line, and everybody I played it for—like Glenn and Don—was saying, ‘That’s the best line in the song.’ But I couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t right.”
“But I slowly came around,” he continues. “You have to understand that songwriters can’t punctuate anything they write. I work in such a narrow medium that I tend to second-guess things like that. As a matter of fact, I’ve seen that line in a few other songs since I came up with it, so I guess it was okay after all.”
After Seger released “Against The Wind”, it was covered multiple times. Other artists who put their own spin on the song include Garth Brooks and The Highwaymen. Although he was nominated seven times, Seger only ever received one Grammy Award, and it’s for “Against The Wind”.
Photo by Paul Natkin/Getty Images
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