That would have been my first choice too, easily. And he's got 15 songs worthy of being #2, but that one, just...I could go on for an hour.
So I'm going to.
Simply put, and I said this on Facebook when he died - and Erik is aware of my thoughts, then, but I'm sharing them now:
I'd often felt that many of Tom Petty's songs could easily be dissected, pulling out every bit of instrumentation and vocalization separately, and enjoyed on their own - and then put back together as a sum of their parts, and loved in that way too, because Petty (or his producers?) was/were aces when it came to instrumentation and production, at least where I see it.
To that point, I can't think of another artist that has so many songs where I enjoy brief, notable moments contained within each song.
And American Girl has about seven of these moments all by itself:
-The first jangle of the guitars to the percussive sound that follows it - it sounds like , or maybe slapping leather, rather than drums.
-And then you can hear the bass come in -- ba-bum....bum.....bum....
-And what sounds like a chorus of "aaaaaaaaa" before it goes back to the bass...
-The brief "oooo" just before he comes in with the first line... (He uses this several times)
-(Make it last all night )
-Second first -- "So far out of reach..." and then the guitar sort of winds up and down, as if he's shifted to kind of a slide guitar (Not a musician, may be wrong, feel free to correct)
-The wordless bridge - "ba-da-da-da (ah) ba-da-da-da (ah)"
-the furious guitar solo that closes it out.
Fantastic.
I'll be saying this up and down this draft, but to me it's the thing that makes Petty unique. I love other musicians more - much more, in fact. But no other one has snippets that stick with me.
So I'm going to.
Simply put, and I said this on Facebook when he died - and Erik is aware of my thoughts, then, but I'm sharing them now:
I'd often felt that many of Tom Petty's songs could easily be dissected, pulling out every bit of instrumentation and vocalization separately, and enjoyed on their own - and then put back together as a sum of their parts, and loved in that way too, because Petty (or his producers?) was/were aces when it came to instrumentation and production, at least where I see it.
To that point, I can't think of another artist that has so many songs where I enjoy brief, notable moments contained within each song.
And American Girl has about seven of these moments all by itself:
-The first jangle of the guitars to the percussive sound that follows it - it sounds like , or maybe slapping leather, rather than drums.
-And then you can hear the bass come in -- ba-bum....bum.....bum....
-And what sounds like a chorus of "aaaaaaaaa" before it goes back to the bass...
-The brief "oooo" just before he comes in with the first line... (He uses this several times)
-(Make it last all night )
-Second first -- "So far out of reach..." and then the guitar sort of winds up and down, as if he's shifted to kind of a slide guitar (Not a musician, may be wrong, feel free to correct)
-The wordless bridge - "ba-da-da-da (ah) ba-da-da-da (ah)"
-the furious guitar solo that closes it out.
Fantastic.
I'll be saying this up and down this draft, but to me it's the thing that makes Petty unique. I love other musicians more - much more, in fact. But no other one has snippets that stick with me.
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