Tom Petty Song Discussion Thread

[TheGaffer]

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.

[Erik]

American Girl would not have been my pick at 1.1, but maybe only because my top choice has a sentimental component to it. It may well have been my pick at 1.2 if the other song was gone. He produced a fully-formed masterpiece right out of the gate.

[Fresno Bob]

I actually didn't want the first pick of the Petty draft, and I'm expecting my sentimental favorite to make it back to me, but felt I had to take American Girl at 1.1

[senorsheep]

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.

"Ev'ry one of them words rang true and glowed like burnin' coals..."

I'm glad there are others who appreciate him on that level. Feel free to break down more songs like that.

[DMT]

Let's see if Lucky can make it a clean trifecta sweep.

[DMT]

Has everyone seen the documentary Runnin' Down a Dream? It's over four hours long but definitely worth it. I loved that he fought the music company and won the rights to his songs and it elevated 'I Won't Back Down' to another level for me.

[Redbirds Fan]

Hey, mine was sort of a sentimental favorite.

I started to appreciate Petty's brilliance when one of the bands I was in began covering a bunch of his songs. One of the fan favorites (and most fun to perform live) was Mary Jane. It's sonically rich and textured, and perfect for a four piece plus a singer who can play a mean harp.

Petty's songs are deceptively simple. He creates captivating soundscapes using simple changes and basic instrumentation. I didn't appreciate how good he was until I played his music. It is an honor to do so.

[Erik]

Has everyone seen the documentary Runnin' Down a Dream? It's over four hours long but definitely worth it. I loved that he fought the music company and won the rights to his songs and it elevated 'I Won't Back Down' to another level for me.

I have and it was awesome.

[Erik]

Hey, mine was sort of a sentimental favorite.

I started to appreciate Petty's brilliance when one of the bands I was in began covering a bunch of his songs. One of the fan favorites (and most fun to perform live) was Mary Jane. It's sonically rich and textured, and perfect for a four piece plus a singer who can play a mean harp.



Petty's songs are deceptively simple. He creates captivating soundscapes using simple changes and basic instrumentation. I didn't appreciate how good he was until I played his music. It is an honor to do so.

Fun fact: Mary Jane was the only Petty song (didn’t check if any Wilburys went) taken in the Desert Island Draft, by Lucky/Redbirds of course. Hence I knew this would be his first rounder. I’m pretty sure I know Sheep’s first rounder too, it’s still on the board.

Fun fact 2: This was original drummer Stan Lynch’s last recording with the band. He much preferred Stonesy rock to more intricate stuff, and he was upset that Petty had gotten away from that starting in the mid 80s. So in 1993 he decided to call it quits. He agreed to play on the two new songs they were recording for their greatest hits album before he left. Mary Jane was the kind of song that Lynch had been begging Petty to write* for almost 10 years, and he loved it. I’ve always seen it as sort of their tribute to him.

* - He did not play on the song that gave the 4-hour documentary its title; that was on a Petty solo album.

[Erik]

American Girl would not have been my pick at 1.1, but maybe only because my top choice has a sentimental component to it. It may well have been my pick at 1.2 if the other song was gone. He produced a fully-formed masterpiece right out of the gate.

Refugee would have been my top pick. It was December 1979, I was 8 years old, and my family was leaving for a monthlong trip to India and Nepal. The flight left from JFK. For the first leg, my mother drove my sister and I from suburban Philly to central NJ to pick up my father from his office. There was a terrible storm and what was normally a 1-hour trip took 5. My mother had the top 40 station on and Refugee came on a few times. Amidst all the disco and yacht rock, the clarion blasts of Mike Campbell’s guitar and Benmont Tench’s organ stood out like a cure I didn’t know I needed. I’d never heard of Tom Petty or the song before, but that’s when I first took notice. It was his biggest hit to date and the first single from the album that would put him into the top tier of mainstream rock stars. I still love it to this day. It is one of the moments that made me realize I was going to be more of a rock guy than a pop guy. (Side 2 of Rust Never Sleeps also helped with that.)

The other song from that ride that stood out was Dance the Night Away by Van Halen. That made less of a long-term impression on me. Fuck synths and Sammy Hagar.

[Redbirds Fan]

Well, "The Waiting" is a helluva pick regardless of the round. It just gets down to it.

[Erik]

I always saw The Waiting as a sequel (in a good way) to Refugee. It's got all the same things that make the earlier song a masterpiece, but shuffles them completely around to produce a unique vision. I may have taken it with one of my first two picks if I didn't know Sheep would.

[Redbirds Fan]

Erik's pick would have been my #1 if not for my devotion to Mary Jane. I never got to see Petty, but one of my concert highlights was one of my favorite bands (Gov't Mule) at one of my favorite venues (Revolution Room) busting out "Breakdown" late in the final set one hot Spring night in 2008.

It's all right.

[TheGaffer]

"Even the Losers" is another one of those Petty songs with brief moments that stand out - the guitar in the background chugging away as the song really gets going, the opening verse.

And "Free Fallin'?" It was ubiquitous in the late 1980s - you really, really, couldn't get away from it. So it took me some distance to truly appreciate its genius, and it's another one of what I think you folks are talking about with his deceptively simple approach. Plus I love the odd weirdness of how the harmonies come in on that "move west down/Ventura Boulevard..." line.

[Erik]

Erik's pick would have been my #1 if not for my devotion to Mary Jane. I never got to see Petty, but one of my concert highlights was one of my favorite bands (Gov't Mule) at one of my favorite venues (Revolution Room) busting out "Breakdown" late in the final set one hot Spring night in 2008.

It's all right.

I was lucky enough to see him three times between 2002 and 2010. He slayed the shit out of Runnin' Down a Dream each time, I believe it got the coveted last-song-of-regular set or last-song-of-encore slot each time; I believe American Girl got whichever one Runnin' didn't.