POLL: Tom Petty/Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

as much as i'd like to choose something from 'full moon fever', don't come around here no more takes it out easily (and not just for the ace video)

i went for "the waiting"

I'm sort of favoring "It'll All Work Out" right now because I just watched Elizabethtown a couple days ago, but in the grand scheme I really have to go with "Don't Come Around Here No More."

the super-underrated "Learning to Fly," narrowly over "You Got Lucky," "Free Fallin" and "Don't Come Around Here No More>."

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

"Refugee"

"Even The Losers" and "Into The Great Wide Open" are great as well though.

He's had lots of hits that you no longer hear on the radio, no? From a distance "Jammin' Me," "A Woman in Love," and "Change of Heart" sound great, so this is hard to choose.

Ok fuck it I say "Jammin' Me," thanks to Dylan's lyrical input.

"even the losers"

wtf it has to be American Girls or Even the Losers or even Here Comes My Girl. That latter day ELO-style stuff is uggghghghghgh

i love a lot of these but because i think "american girl" is perfect in every detail i can't not vote for it.

Yeah, "American Girl" for me too, easily.

"Don't come around here no more" for me.

Don't Come Around Here No More takes it easily.

went with "The Waiting" just over "Don't Come Around Here No More" cuz "A Face In The Crowd" isn't on it.

I've always been annoyed by "Don't Come Around Here..." It's a great production job, but Petty's whine has never sounded more irritating ("y-y-ya TANGLE mah EEE-MO-O-O-T-SHEE-ONNS!!!").

Still, there was really nothing that sounded like it on the radio in 1985, right? (sitars! drum machine! psychedelic keyboards! Dave Stewart wank-a-rama!)

"Don't Come Around Here No More" is first and foremost a great video.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I knew I should have voted for Breakdown

"Learning to Fly" is his most boring single ever. Doesn't deserve the company of "Even the Losers."

don't come around here no more is a sound in search of a tune

"So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star" (live)

"Into the Great Wide Open" is the worst song/video of all time

don't come around here no more is a sound in search of a tune

OTM

1999's "Swingin'," his last top 20 rock radio hit, has aged pretty well

"Breakdown" 0
"Rebels" 0
"I Need to Know" 0

still can't get over these results

yeah i am loathe to run the same poll twice but it might be warranted here, i think ILM has become a more Petty-friendly place since then

Straight Into Darkness also got really hosed.

yeah wtf. RE POLL

I would totally repoll mid eighties Petty. Our generation has reclaimed him.

i was thinking of doing something goofy and specific like post '70s and pre-Full Moon Fever but i don't really know

Let Me Down is a very good record; and Drive By Truckers covered " Rebels"

no votes for "I Won't Back Down" = this poll clearly has no legitimacy whatsoever

the problem with a Tom Petty poll is only being able to vote for one song

like i spot at least 6 songs i'd feel terrible not making my #1

mike Campbell rules

i think as a teenager i'd irritate my brother by making a big deal about how mike campbell was the name of the heartbreakers' guitarist and how great he was every time a tom petty song came on, for years and years

make a Petty poll where u can vote five times each

mike campbell rules

it's a shame a big tom petty tracks poll isn't really a sustainable ilx thing. maybe i should just sign up to do one, and then spend the next 2-3 years until it's time to do it rallying people to explore the petty catalog.

A whole generation grew up thinking the Wilburys created the besf acoustic/harmony sound in latr eighties rock

oh some dude you should do one! pleeeeese

the problem with a Tom Petty poll is only being able to vote for one song

Seriously. Tom Petty's got such a ridiculously strong catalog.

I'm drunk at a friends house and want to hear every Petty song

i demand excellent youtubes

I demand Cheer Down clips

i don't do karaoke but i decided a few years ago that if i ever do, "don't do me like that" would probably be my song

which is probably a bad idea, petty is even further out of my range than most singers, but man i love that song

here is an excellent youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfeEkJGcG0I

tbh I cannot believe don't come around here no more finished at #2.

i want to go back in time& date tom petty

Fine tune but no

http://tvmedia.ign.com/tv/image/article/707/707850/edu-macating-lucky-20060511113425511-000.jpg

yeah "don't come around" is nice but v 2nd tier

I saw him live in 2010; it was awesome.

i saw him whenLast Dj came out, fking great

listening to Damn The Torpedoes right now fyi

the best

century city

I could reel off 30-40 votes in a Petty tracks poll, easy.

More videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI5SilO1EOM

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1w4d0_tom-petty-change-of-heart_music#.UOJ1fBxDGd0

"Rebels" 0

I love Petty, but I have seriously mixed feelings about this song, particularly since it was accompanied by a huge-ass confederate flag on that tour.

Johnny Cash said "Southern Accents" was a better song than "Dixie".

he's right

Yeah, I'd go along with that.

how the fuck is "You Don't Know How It Feels" not on a Petty anthology?

not enough space on the CD?

Think it's on Warners, so it can't be on an MCA comp.

btw that Bangles collab ("Waiting For Tonight") is marvelous. In the Q&A book, Petty avers that it's one of his best songs.

Yeah, I love that. Also love his demo version of "Ways to Be Wicked."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHecyucnY9E

Think it's on Warners, so it can't be on an MCA comp.

ah right that was after his move to Warner's n/m

not enough space on the CD?

plenty of space for songs that barely charted though. 'you don't know how it feels' was like his third highest charting single iirc

obv Warner Bros explains it though

That Live box that came out a few years back is truly one of the greatest live documents ever released. Every era represented and the quality and coherence of the catalog shines through. I don't love a lot of the 80s studio productions -- they sound like 80s albums with all that entails -- but the live box redeemed the songs themselves. Made me go from a "greatest hits is enough" stance to start the process of slowly getting every damn thing. The hits don't tell half the story.

still want to see the Bogdanovich doc. i've had at least two friends who could be described as casual fans at best swear by it

I need to see that too. Wish it was on Netflix streaming.

It's quite good but four hours.

re: live Petty, I remember hearing a 1977 show on the radio (double bill with Elvis Costello & the Attractions, whose set was also recorded/broadcast, and puts El Mocambo to shame), and they completely smoked. They were like a southern Ramones. I always dug Petty's studio stuff, but man, hearing that show put it in a whole other perspective.

Back before Christmas, the Best Buy near my office was selling the 6CD Playback box for $35, and I almost bought one (DLed it a couple of years ago). Now I wish I had, and my office has moved way uptown in the interim.

scored that Playback box used for like $19 in the late 90s

I bought Playback last Christmas from Best Buy for $35. I think it's a perennial holiday sale. Totally worth it.

scored that Playback box used for like $19 in the late 90s

Me too, one of my favorite record-store scores. Even though I already had most of the albums, the outtakes and extras are full of good stuff.

would love to hear some of those B-sides

casa dega is his best b-side period. can totally see how it didn't quite fit with the rest of DtT though. "gator on the lawn" is fun and good for a laugh.
Refugee ceratinly deserves more than two votes - what a **cking graet single!

in the Conversations With... book (recommended), he regrets leaving "Trailers" off Southern Accents.

"Trailer" that is

mike campbell rules
otm
and yeah, playback is a super good box set.

誤訳侮辱 - Amazon has Playback for $35.

Also, the 3 DVD/1 CD special edition of Runnin' Down A Dream is cheaper than just the movie at the moment - only $14.65. I couldn't resist. Should never have clicked on this thread.

finally getting around to watching the runnin down a dream doc. pretty entertaining -- a little more straightforward than i thought it would be. actually, kind of want to see a documentary about jimmy iovine, dude seems like a bizarre character.

Couldn't get through it. Thought it was tedious. Made it about 3 hours in, though. Came away feeling different about TP - he always struck me as this sort of stoner / slacker guy for whom fame just sorta happened, but the doc paints a picture of an occasionally off-puttingly calculating dude - stealing band members from Del Shannon, convincing guys to drop out of college, going to war with producers and labels at the drop of a hat, etc. Dude was ruthless, with a major chip on his shoulder. I also got depressed trying to imagine a time when a man as fugly as TP (who has aged really, really well) could rule the world with an above average five piece rock and roll combo and a few well-timed tours of the UK.

Agree about Iovine, though. I'd watch that documentary.

Read the Conversations With.... The guy is shrewd.

In the last few months I've realized "Waiting For Tonight" is one of his best tunes and performances, whine and all.

lolziest thing about the doc is the clearly deliberate omission of any discussion of Mike Campbell's extracurricular activities

basically the doc confirmed that Stan Lynch is a bro.

Stan Lynch on "The Waiting" is one of my fave drum takes ever.

In the making-of episode about Damn the Torpedoes, I was surprised at the shit-talking about Stan's drumming. But after they sort-of-fired him, they couldn't find anyone else with the right feel, so they brought him back.

I actually can't listen to the Heartbreakers without Stan. Just seems off somehow. He had an insanely unique feel for someone with such a seemingly straightforward approach.

convincing guys to drop out of college
ha well, do you think any of them are like, man, i wish i had stayed in gainesville and gotten my engineering degree...

Nah, you're right, but still, at the time, Tench's judge father must have been like "who the fuck does this punk think he is?"

Also? I realized that hearing all those songs together has a cumulative 'meh' affect on me. I call it the Billy Joel Syndrome. Any one of these songs on the radio, I'm all "yeah, all right, it's 'The Waiting!'" or whatever. But back to back, there's a certain something missing for me, something hollow and not satisfying, which I don't feel when I listen to Springsteen, etc.

Not hating on TP, he was one of the first artists I truly loved as a kid, but I dunno, man. That documentary bummed me out.

wish they'd spent more time on Let Me Up but that's my fault.

xp nah, i know what you mean -- petty definitely cultivated a laid back bro image, and the doc dispels that. but i dunno, i'd be surprised if anyone at his level of rock stardom wasn't deeply ambitious/somewhat cutthroat.

anyhoo anyone going to these LA/NYC tp + heartbreakers stands they just announced? i haven't seen tom petty since 1995, but i sort of have an itch to see him now.

"Here Comes My Girl" was my Petty radio jam today

that guy really has a gift for pre-choruses and verses that build up to the hook

Gonna try to see at least one of the NYC shows.

The original inspiration was a romantic encounter that Stewart had with Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac.[2] On The Howard Stern Show, Dave Stewart explained that the title's phrase was actually uttered by Nicks. She had broken up with Joe Walsh the night before,[3] and invited Stewart to her place for a party after an early Eurythmics show in Los Angeles. Stewart did not know who she was at the time, but went anyway. When the party goers all disappeared to a bathroom for a couple of hours to snort cocaine, he decided to go upstairs to bed. He woke up at 5am to find Nicks in his room trying on Victorian clothing and described the entire scenario as very much reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland. Later that morning, she told Walsh, "Don't come around here no more".

Apropos of nothing, "Melinda" off the live anthology is such a killer song. I love it to death.

Read the Petty interview book over the weekend and have been listening to a lot of his music for the first time in a long time. I kept thinking of Springsteen and how much higher I rate him than Petty as a songwriter, who I've always thought was sort of workmanlike at best, reliant on cliches and hampered by a general lack of ambition. But then I starting thinking about what a better band the Heartbreakers are than the E Street Band, what overwhelmingly better, more talented, more interested players they are, and how that raises the level of Petty's game so much higher, so that even some of his most MOR, workmanlike songs really come to life. I guess Springsteen, being a capital A sort of Auteur, needs his band for support, to help him fulfill his creative vision, whereas Petty, to his credit, recognizes that he needs people around him - Benmont Tench, Mike fucking Campbell, Jeff Lynne - to make his relatively plain pop songs so much better. And that's what takes Petty miles above Mellencamp, who I always sensed saw himself as a Springsteen-esque arena Auteur/dictator as well but simply lacked the skills to pull it off.

emma-lee, "what would tom petty do?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLywAwrfhz4

The central conceit of this song is ridiculous. Nobody anywhere asks themselves what Tom Petty would do.

but if they did, for some reason, ask themselves that question, there's a pretty good chance the answer would be, "do not write and do not record this song."

wanted to love this when i heard it existed but it's frankly terrible and full of things tom petty would not do

he must've caught a bad case of Full Of Things Tom Petty Would Not Do Moon Fever

i was super wrong 7 years ago - this is "I Won't Back Down"

or "Breakdown" or "Don't Do Me Like That"

"A Woman In Love" wuz robbed.

American Girl is my favorite song of all time but Change of Heart fuuuuuuuuuuck yeah

went with "The Waiting" just over "Don't Come Around Here No More" cuz "A Face In The Crowd" isn't on it.

― da croupier, Tuesday, October 9, 2007 9:07 PM (6 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"A Face In The Crowd" is my second favorite Petty tune, behind "Breakdown"

the new bio mentions Petty's heroin use in the nineties:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/style-blog/wp/2015/10/07/tom-petty-was-a-heroin-addict-in-the-90s-heres-why-hes-finally-talking-about-it/

Wow.

what the hell

explains the exile in the chicken shack

wow

I'm assuming he was into it during Wildflowers and maybe Echo? Saw some comments above about Mike Campbell's "extracurricular activities" was he also on heroin?

think that was referring to campbell's production/songwriting gigs away from petty.
but yeah, pretty strange re: petty's heroin use. obviously Echo is a pretty dark record, but ...

Sixties had acid. Seventies had cocaine. But nooooo, I had to come of age when everyone was shooting heroin.

i'm thankful that i missed the coke years

Holy mackerel that's nuts. I actually saw the tour the writer was on. It was the Del Fuegos, Georgia Satellites and Tom Petty/Heartbreakers. The Let Me Up (I've Had Enough) tour.

was just listening to Let Me Up I've Had Enough and was thinking it was kinda underrated? Sort of a hodgepodge of approaches, but all pretty good. Weird record for 1987...

It's a real good record. The sound is very dated, and it has its share of clunkers, but the songs are real good. Ain't Love Strange could have been a huge hit if it was produced differently.

Really curious to learn more about Stan Lynch's departure. Always thought he was underrated, and had such a unique top-heavy-but-not-really sound.

LOVE that record. I love the slapdash feel, out of which emerge these great songs that they never play live.

yeah it's funny, w/ Let Me Up, you can see an alternate timeline where they just kinda wander off into being an interesting, maybe kinda esoteric roots rock band, but Full Moon Fever came along.

Holy cow, that blows me away abt Petty's addiction...though looking back on it, I always thought it was really weird that band had one seemingly randon heoirn user in Howie Epstein...there always felt there was more to that story

Still...man that is insane

TS: Herbie Hancock's 90s crack use vs Tom Petty's 90s heroin use?

First concert I ever saw was Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers Full Moon Fever tour, it was totally fucking awesome

LOVE that record. I love the slapdash feel, out of which emerge these great songs that they never play live.

Yes. The title track should have been the single instead of Jammin Me. I'd like to hear an alternate version of Runaway Trains without all the 1986 production.

it is kind of a bummer that dylan didn't make a real record with the heartbreakers as his backing band at the time ... though i guess it's typical dylan -- he's the dude who had The Band at his beck and call from 67-70 and didn't make a real record with them either!

Mike Campbell is on Together Through Life.

we'll probably get to hear the great lost Dylan & The Heartbreakers LP on the forthcoming Knocked Out Loaded Again: The Bootleg Series vol. 27

well, he did have the Band at beck and call for The Basement Tapes

sure, but i don't think any of them thought they were making a proper record at the time -- when it came time for john wesley harding and nashville skyline he went back to nashville.

Let Me Up is the best Heartbreakers record of the '80s, maybe Hard Promises comes closest.

someone with loose connections with the LA music scene told me about the heroin thing about 16 years ago, kinda shrugged it off at the time, weird to have a half-remembered thing be confirmed so long after the fact.

As far as 80s Tom Petty, I always enjoyed Long After Dark. Some of his best songs ever are on that, like Straight Into Darkness.

should we hold the upcoming pettypoll till folks have had a chance to read the bio?

pop quizzes every Thursday

The Petty poll is what, three or four polls away? Just in time for the 50th anniversary reissue of Damn The Torpedoes.

Huge fan of Let Me Up

the title track

The title track should have been the single instead of Jammin Me. I'd like to hear an alternate version of Runaway Trains without all the 1986 production.

― kornrulez6969, Thursday, October 8, 2015

Well, uh, no! If it didn't have the programmed synths, it wouldn't be as good. It's Mike Campbell's attempt to write music as good as "The Boys of Summer."

I think you meant to post that in posts very much in character

yeah runaway trains does sound like boys of summer II ...
another fave is "all mixed up," which suffers a little from the blaring faux horn keyboards, but is such a catchy tune.

"My Life/Your World" is my other jam, which they played in 1989, I see.

Wait, wasn't this heroin thing kind of an open secret? I distinctly remember reading a RS cover story on him in 2006 (sitting in my parents' hotel suite waiting for my wedding ceremony to get underway!) in which he was all but admitting he'd been struggling with heroin sometime after his shitty LA riots song where he just kinda went dark for a while.

This heroin thing is fucking up my worldview

The Petty poll is what, three or four polls away? Just in time for the 50th anniversary reissue of Damn The Torpedoes.

― kornrulez6969, Thursday, October 8, 2015

lol

Well shit

http://www.tmz.com/2017/10/02/tom-petty-found-unconscious-full-cardiac-arrest/

Holy shit. I always have a bad feeling when threads like this pop up, but to have that bad feeling apparently affirmed ...

Update: "We've been in touch with numerous people from Petty's camp and they are clearly upset but not talking."

oh my god

this is some bullshit

Oh no.....

fucking hell

Update: We're told after Petty got to the hospital he had no brain activity and a decision was made to pull life support.

gotta be fucking kidding me.

to quote a friend of mine, "there was a time when we'd have a day that wasn't shitty, right?"

damn

what the hell

oh no

Oh no
I love him

FUCK

Apparently Stan Lynch will be sitting in with Mike Campbell's new band through June 26. This may be the first time they've played together in nearly 30 years!

Ah, forgot about the HOF induction...still pretty great that it's more than a few songs.