My Middle Name Is Earl - The Official ILM Track-By-Track TOM PETTY Listening Thread

Breakdown

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqxns-JTTqA

His first hit! I forget how slow it is.

i'll be back wth thoughts. gotta do stuff.

Maybe they only showed the theatrical trailer in Jamaica!

hey yeah!

wait, that should be Kustomized, right? i don't remember what they sounded like...

"Breakdown": The rare instance where imo the Grace Jones version is not funkier.

go ahead and give it to 'em

this sounds like a Steely Dan song

it doesn't really remind me of anyone weirdly! it just reminds me of tom petty. maybe fleetwood mac at the start...

the keyboard riff is objectively similar to "pretzel logic." the bass moves differently tho

(and it's not even that similar, just both electric key riffs in the key of a minor. petty moves from a minor to g major, the dan have a more intricate am to bm7/a to amin7)

Basically like the Volcano Suns. They’re great and the Suicide Commandos Make A Records is one of the best records of all time. I bought the short lived Mercury CD reissue in ‘96.
― from a prominent family of bassoon players (Boring, Maryland), Wednesday, February 28, 2024 9:13 AM (thirty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Make a Record is just an amazing, wonderful record I wish more people had heard

"Breakdown": On the verses, Petty sounds like how Springsteen looked in '73-4. Phil Seymour on backing vox! Electric Piano!

Wiki:

"Breakdown" was a song written and recorded for the band's debut album. Initially, the song had lead guitarist Mike Campbell with a distinct guitar lick being played only near the end of the song. While playing it back one night, Tom Petty and Dwight Twilley, a friend of Phil Seymour, were in the studio, and Twilley enjoyed it. He suggested that the lick should be used throughout the song, and Petty obliged. At 2 AM, he gathered the Heartbreakers to join him in re-recording the song. Their final take was seven to eight minutes long, but it was pared down to 2 minutes and 39 seconds on the album. Guests on the song's recording include guitarist Jeff Jourard, a common collaborator with the band in their early days, and Phil Seymour, who sings backing vocals.

One of those great live album moments nobody ever talks about is the audience singing the first two verses to Petty on the extended version Pack Up The Plantation!:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNxfPAF1frM

wow i don't think i knew that phil seymour was on that. love him. i wanna hear that original 8 minute version now.

Yeah, Seymour is on this and "American Girl", plus Twilley steps in on "Strangered In The Night".

for some reason its just nice to know that those guys were friends. phil, dwight, and tom. all very talented.

there's a little bit of cod reggae going on in the vocals. i wonder if this was originally envisioned to have more of a reggae feel. man right out of the gate these guys were great arrangers and players. love their early dedication to keeping things short.

i think i remember reading richard meltzer, re. some BOC recording, saying "i know it's alright but i love when rock bands tell me anyway." i thought about that here.

i don't hear cod reggae, more an exaggerated 50s rock styling a la buddy holly (but filtered thru petty's drawl)

The backing vocals are very present on "Breakdown." It's almost like there's a whole other song there.

for true cod reggae Petty:

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

i love the pace/pacing of "breakdown". it just creates this great mood of expectation. i want to know what's going to happen next! that , to me, is key to being a good artist.

I love how these two songs would be a perfect way to start a live set: the quick rave up to get the audience going, with room to patter over it even, and then settle into "Breakdown."

In The Wild: I'm hosting my weekly pub quiz tonight. For music, I use an ever-growing Spotify playlist curated by myself and several other hosts that is currently weighing in at over 1300 songs. I use it in Shuffle mode, which just spit out "American Girl" and then "Girls" by Dwight Twilley, which of course features Mr. Petty.

my primary exhibit that I use to demonstrate his association with 1976-77 era punk is his inclusion here:

https://www.discogs.com/release/2233401-Various-Whitmans-Punk-Sampler

Their final take was seven to eight minutes long

god I hope this gets released someday

dammit i didn’t even know you had started!

Rockin Around:
To me this is the Heartbreakers doing a kind of punk-ish ode to Buddy Holly & The Crickets. the skiffley kinda beat and that plaintive-yet-cool vocal … he gets all the girls. I love it. And the retro vibe is the mission statement for them

Breakdown:
There is a fever in the 70’s and that fever is reggae
Mike Campbell’s gorgeous guitar stings with Tench’s fucking beautiful keyboards on this. Petty’s angst hurling itself into the chorus. And it is only the second track and it is alreadt insane how so many genuiuses are in a single band together and sounding THIS good on their FIRST ALBUM?
also the production on Breakdown is so exactly the sound of 70’s radio to me, it sounds like standing in my childhood kitchen.
ugh i will love it til the day i die. this song is like a drug, intoxicating rhythym & swagger right out of the gate

My wife put on the Live Anthology box while making lunch today. We listened to Discs 2 and 3 together. It ruled.

anyway here’s lads

https://media.gettyimages.com/id/73998958/photo/tom-petty-the-heartbreakers.jpg?s=2048x2048&w=gi&k=20&c=-K753J3l35JogyLkn29lZOV7c1KSNQQkmIX_uoskMMo=

xpost Live Anthology is a gift that keeps on giving, love it so much!!

now with more ceiling tiles & wider pants!

https://media.gettyimages.com/id/73998942/photo/photo-of-tom-petty-the-heartbreakers.jpg?s=2048x2048&w=gi&k=20&c=KZ0nRfLYAfM_UnYIrhAr4JBbfEYUozF0g2tQqyLKadU=

Thank you for this thread, definitely here for it.

It makes sense that "Breakdown" was originally 8 minutes, it feels longer than it is to me — it has this great languorous groove, I'm always surprised that it's under 3 minutes. Also, the Grace Jones cover is good.

That photo looks so much like "freshman dorm" group pics.

let's not forget the insert tha tcame with teh album! (credits on back)

https://i.discogs.com/GwIH5C3R316WfJfwP_4uxA22ZrKYiT8Z-zZikeatIs8/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:600/w:484/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTMxNzgw/MTUtMTUwNzI0NDcy/Mi05Mzk2LmpwZWc.jpeg

maybe fleetwood mac at the start...

there's a LOT of fleetwood mac in this one. the bassline. the electric piano. the feeling that stevie nicks is about to walk up to the mic any minute now. i like tom's voice better on the lone verse (or maybe it's two short verses in a row?) than on the choruses. i wouldn't have minded if he'd written another verse.

this is one hell of a debut single.

Just realized another Steely Dan track this sorta sounds like is "Babylon Sisters".

happy to see this thread, Scott! and great comments so far.

i own five Petty albums, but a big part of that is that my partner has deep love for him, inseparable from Gainesville pride. and i came in the door as someone who'd always enjoyed all his hits, and made some halting effort to get into Hard Promises a couple years earlier. point is, I've spent a good amount of time listening to these albums, but usually in the background while we're doing chores or playing Dr. Mario. always like them when they're on, but I've never fully committed to him as a freestanding fan.

at this stage, what i hear is an especially strong and tight bar band, getting recorded by people who know how to get that their strong sense of groove on tape. a precious combination. the deep, smoke-hazy Mac vibe of "Breakdown" is definitely its biggest strength... it's *got* hooks, but they're less essential. i'd normally vote for Christine over Stevie but this could be fascinating with some ethereal grace wafting its way around the organ lines. I do love those lush 70s backing vocals tho.

Petty's own vocal take is all over the map to me... feels like he's going for "Italian street tough" after seeing too many gangster movies, and then when he peels that back he doesn't sound like *himself* either. whereas on "Rockin' Around With You," there's no mistaking him for a second, those oh-so-relatable layers of slightly reedy, slightly scruffy, Dylan-inflected southern Everyman. looking forward to spending some time with this guy.

Great start to the thread, everybody. I know all the hits and I have Damn the Torpedos and Long After Dark, but don't know the deep cuts outside those two albums.

Doctor, I agree on strong and tight, but "bar band" seems unfair at this point. The track is layered, *almost* too layered. To me it feels ilvery much like a 70s studio track in the Rumours style.

I would actually argue that Mr. Petty got way more bar-band-like later in his career, when he was already established and had nothing to prove.

Hmm, yeah. I guess I'm trying to get at a sense that these tracks feel like some extra high quality ambience for hanging out and having a good time, without necessarily grabbing me by the ear.

"Rockin'..." also has this quality where, it was a really good choice to make it track one, where it feels like an energy-boosting curtain raiser, because I could see it feeling like kind of a "breather" deep cut as track nine.

Hometown Blues

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN_j_tu5nqo

there is no picture sleeve for the breakdown single in the u.s. but there is this nice german one. also the debut album came out in november so worldwide a lot of the singles came out in early 1977.

https://i.discogs.com/BStlpVkG4Fr3GW7kCPqcvsCSA0kilLpiJl2oik9iHH0/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:600/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTE3OTcw/NTItMTUyMDc1Nzcy/OC0xODQyLmpwZWc.jpeg

I love these little ditties on the debut, he kind of stopped writing them after this. I guess the two big singles on the second album are kind of in this mode, too, but after that it's very sporadic. (Full Moon Fever includes a couple catchy little throwaways, like "Yer So Bad.") Anyway, this song's kind of a nothing but a totally likable one.

it is indeed a likable nothing. cutesy tom.

just jumping in. Have never actually heard the debut album.

"Rockin' Around (With You)" is not - reminds me a bit of like VG said rockabilly new wave impulse - "Someday Someday" by Marshall Crenshaw comes to mind

"Breakdown" I've heard so many times....one thing about this song is it really feels like it's got one foot in the 70s and one foot in the 80s, like the chorus feels 80s but that theme from Taxi Rhodes is so 70s

Yeah, the debut album in particular feels very '70s AM radio. Notable how much he's not trying to be Aerosmith or Zep or whatever the Rock Band template was in 1976.

Looking forward to tomorrow's discussion of the second-greatest song on the album ...

Hometown Blues - you gotta dance to this to truly enjoy it, you can’t catch the vibe just in headphones. It’s a groovy little two-stepper!

"Hometown Blues" feels a bit throwaway, like a Springsteen throwaway that got left off of The River or something, it's nice enough

Rosanne Cash's cover was my intro:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk6p9QKU4ok

It's a very pleasant throwaway! Nice vibe laid on the skeleton of a country-rock song. The drum track is really basic though - some rhythmic variation or really cracking fills could take this a lot higher. I wonder if this is a basic track they laid down early in the sessions, and never had time to go back to? That Cash cover is pleasant and gives a sense of how it would work with a little more muscle. (It still struggles to find a really punchy way through the "if they don't or if they do" bit, which feels like it should really hit harder as a hook>). Linda Ronstadt would have done well with this too.

This time, the Fleetwood Mac connection is more hypothetical: boy would this work well as one of those maniacal late-night Buckingham songs on Tusk.

all i can hear now is a hypothetical stevie nicks singing "breakdown". she would be soooooo perfect for it.

"well, it can get you in the back boy"

i like that opening line.

nice one! verging on country crossover with that tuned-down telecaster.

and with just a tiny spoonful of "Don't Do Me Like That" in that insistent opening!

this is nice. i'd take more of it!

I like this:

Well, it can make you string barbed-wire
Around your little piece of ground
Yeah, for emotional protection

How Many More Days

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

Van Morrison's favorite Tom Petty song.

kidding. you guys would have believed me though maybe.

It was their makeup person's favorite Petty song, though! This is true.

i would have believed you! weird song -- rushed nervous vocals reminiscent of van. it sounds like mike campbell's open tuning has him fighting to keep the slide solo in the key of the song.

Also improvised in the studio

The Van Morrison call-out is otm, this has a Big Music vibe to it, like someone was listening to the Waterboys. It's fine as such.

Let Me Up (I've Had Enough)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeZICly3Qdw

i'll take that over the black crowes any day.

Make That Connection

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DsbFIJTFm4

"make that connection" the only b-side as far as i can tell. a very no-frills album.

I won't front: "Let Me Up (I've Had Enough)" is top ten Petty. I love the way the bass tugs at the chorus, and Benmont and Stan hold up their ends.

did “let me up” soundtrack any “i’m trying to figure out my life but can’t” montages in 80s comedies? cause it should have

let me up the album was a very pleasant surprise for me in general. i hadnt heard a note of it before and figured its absence from greatest hits albums indicated a dud. how wrong i was, it’s no frills even by petty standards but there is a kind of petulant joy that animates the rockers and the more poignant tracks provided the first real evidence of the vein he’d mine with wildflowers (still prob my fav petty-related thing)

very otm

The album was contractual obligation: no producer, just a well-rehearsed unit in a studio jamming after touring with Dylan. When the album became his biggest commercial flop and the arson happened, he pretty much disowned it. I think it's the most relaxed thing he's recorded to date, without which we get no Full Moon Fever. Then George Harrison came into his life.

We return to the next chapter on Monday.

with the Wilburys album: now i'm thinking i'll just post two tracks a day? it would take 5 days. and any b-sides i'd add on day 5.

and then on to full moon fever.

does that sound okay? i was looking and thinking maybe just doing songs with petty lead vocals but he sings on everything and has no clear lead on anything. and obviously he helped write everything.

sounds good to me.

"let me up" probably my favorite from this album. i love the "gimme shelter"-ness of it. great tempo for rocking out.

I am down with a Wilburys daily double

I don't love this album. There are some OK songs on it, but it was always destined to slide into obscurity. Every band that exists for long enough puts out placeholder albums, and this is exactly that. I think it was damaged commercially by releasing "Jammin' Me" as a single (also, how the hell does that song open the album?), and by its ridiculous cover art, which makes it look like a goddamn Squeeze album or something. It might have done better if "The Damage You've Done" had been the first single.

"Jammin' Good" did just as well as previous Petty singles, though. "The Damage You've Done" sounds like an album track.

lol "Jammin' Me."

Even if the single itself is successful (the broad American public does love a novelty song), releasing a track like that as a single damages one's brand. The vibes are off.

I have a soft spot for this album, not least because I saw him on the tour for it and it was a good show. Definitely the end of the first part of his career.