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

Actually a little is plenty, thanks

Shakey bowed out of the Eagles listening thread after a while because It Wasn't For Him. No offense, but why are you sticking around if an album and a half haven't done a thing?

or, actually, I'd love to read -- I mean it -- what makes these songs painful. There's precedent: by the time we got to the Eagles' last album that's all we were doing.

yeah, use your words.

"Too Much Ain't Enough" is a solid southern rocker. Campbell is the king of in-and-out solos. There's definitely a punkiness to it (in spirit) that sets it apart from a lot of other southern rock, and for sure from most of the butt rock of the era. Maybe it's the economy? Lithe arrangement?

Maybe not surprisingly, in later tours it became an elongated guitar jam.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywkuFGF7Jog

"Too Much Ain't Enough": Very Zeppy riffage here. The most Southern/Butt Rock entry thus far. Definitely could see it as a live rave-up vehicle.

I Need to Know

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkYhfDr77jc

perfection! power pop with real power. short/sharp/shock. kudos!

aha the truth finally comes out -- he IS afraid of you running away! another peppy song. i'm not sure i'd call this one power pop perfection though -- that happens later on the next song on the album. the chord progression here is a little trite. even by this point that end-of-stairway-to-heaven thing had been done to death, and the verse is just a two-chord vamp.

i just love how it sounds. i feel like 3/4 of the song is chorus. that teeny tiny guitar solo is perfect. its under 2 and a half minutes long. girl trouble. i love his vocals too. i love that first line about going solo. its invigorating. love the yell before the solo. its win/win for me.

all those things are really good -- this is a good one for sure.

Love this song, total banger. I think the entire case for Petty as New Wave rests on this track — short and punchy, big shiny guitars, slight futuristic vibe to the echoey reverb on the vocal.

love this one as much or more today as i did hearing it the first time. that scream has to be like top 5 in a rock song ever. i don't get "power pop" or "new wave" from this hard rocker though

It’s in the bright tone, I think — put it this way, it doesn’t sound like what Foreigner or whoever the big rock bands of 1978 were doing. It’s sharper and leaner. I agree that it is basically just a rock rave up, but it presents as something of its moment, not retro in any way.

Also, it's not bluesy, which is a butt rock signifier.

so many bar bands playing rock covers at this time emulated this band and the cars and bought skinny ties (not saying heartbreakers were a skinny tie band) and got record deals. some were good. some not so good. some still sounded like the bar bands that they were with a new wardrobe and colorful album cover. but some got it right. and added something new to the pop rock canon.

In 2010 Scott Miller called it "still his best song since the debut". I'd agree that it's closer to This Year's Model than what was regarded as the mainstream rock of the era.

two big adenoidal dylan fans. tom and elvis.

they both remind me of that time. 1979 especially.

i’m way behind so i’m just gonna jump back on here

“I Need To Know” as the kids say, fucking GOES

Also fell behind last week - been moderately enjoying the tracks but without much to say, as a lot of them are kinda "nice sound, bops along nicely, hasn't grabbed hold of me as yet." The line between that and "filler" is a fuzzy one, but it definitely helps that the band have gusto and the recordings are punchy. "Too Much Ain't Enough" is the only real dud so far --- underwritten, and saddled with one of Petty's worst "cartoon booze-hound" vocal performances.

"I Need to Know" - oh, right, this song!! This rocks. Probably haven't heard it all that many times in my life but it's immediately memorable. So much momentum! The boogie piano on top of the fast-bobbing bass is a lot of fun. And of course that McCartney-esque "waiow!" is gold - nice setup for the even more nakedly Beatlesy gem coming up.

What's going on again? He needs to know? Great, sounds good, I'm on board!

Found this by accident the other day: David Spade as TP teaming up with the real TP on today's song for a band shot on SNL in '94:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAARPy5sZWQ

Spade telling the story behind it from his audiobook:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-tsSvrCLfs

i love how he simultaneously accepts that she's already gone ("all of a sudden it's me on the outside") while insisting that maybe she's not quite gone yet ("if you think you're gonna leave..."). basically, the apotheosis of the jilted lover rock song. rage and yearning mixed hopelessly together. and goddamn it rocks. it "fucking GOES" is exactly right.

but my favorite thing about it is that opening volley: "the talk on the street says you might go solo." is he losing a girl or a bandmate? which is worse?

i also love how the accusation "who woulda thought that you'd fall for his line?" is going to be completely inverted by the next song, which is way up there among my all-time favorite petty songs, but i guess we can talk about that tomorrow!

I love the way he enunciates "go solo," three rhyming syllable in a row.

Also that you can hear it as "go so low," which I assume is intentional.

I need to know!

this one is a true banger

Looking it up out of curiosity, it's kinda surprising how few co-writes Campbell actually gets.

"I Need To Know": Firing on all cylinders here. Love when the guitars pull back on the second half of the chorus (the "Because I don't how long..." part), showing off the engine room of Blair, Lynch & Tench and how much of what you really like about this song comes from them keeping the hammer down.

Looking it up out of curiosity, it's kinda surprising how few co-writes Campbell actually gets.

― Josh in Chicago,

This will start to change.

Not really! I just looked! Some great songs, yeah, but generally 2 or 3 per album, and rarely the big hit.

Maybe not rarely, but only occasionally a hit, I should say.

Campbell co-wrote "Refugee," "Here Comes My Girl," "A Woman in Love," "You Got Lucky," "Jammin' Me" (with Dylan and Petty) and "Runnin' Down a Dream" (with Jeff Lynne). Other than the flop "A Woman in Love," that's impressive!

No one's doubting that, but for some reason I thought he co-wrote more. I mean, the flip is Petty has sole credit on "Breakdown," "American Girl," "I Need to Know," "Listen to Her Heart," "Even the Losers," "Don't Do Me Like That," "Rebels," "Southern Accents," "Free Fallin," "Won't Back Down," "You Don't Know How It Feels," etc.

And "Spike."

"a woman in love" could never be a flop in my heart

Man, that's a lot of hits I can sing off the top of my head.

"A Woman in Love" is so great, but I will say that when they broke it out during their Bonnaroo set there was a notable lull in the crowd's interest. Of course, for a lot of people there anything before Full Moon Fever came out before they were born.

by "flop" I meant its chart prospects. Campbell and Petty have often remarked that the intense label push behind "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" killed further interest in singles from Hard Promises after "The Waiting."

"A Woman In Love" was their first (or at least one of their first) music videos. It's another one that's legacy was hurt a little by not being included on Greatest Hits.

Duck Dunn on bass!

mike lives off of his "the boys of summer" money. the rest is gravy.

Campbell wrote "The Heart of the Matter" with Henley and JD Souther, too. That album also has a couple of tracks written with Stan Lynch, and Benmont and Tench both get writing credits, along with Mike, on the previous Henley album.

Lynch is/was one of the Donster's main lyrical collaborators. There's some good stories about them over in the Don'n'Glenn listening thread.

well yeah

Listen to Her Heart

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pH7nUIHLIC0

such a beaut. okay okay this is the power pop perfection that sang freud was after. i get it. those guitars. oof. they could take those guitars at the end to the moon and back and they just stop instead! that takes guts.

been looking forward to this one since we started! such a jam, from the opening chords onward.

This song is so good. Byrdsy-southern-power-pop that somehow doesn't sound at all like Big Star.