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

We don't have to cover every Wilbury tune? Maybe the ones with clear Tom Petty leads like "Last Night"?

yeah, that makes sense.

but mudcrutch is basically tp & the heartbreakers and one old guy nobody knows from florida, right? seems hard to ignore. wait, why don't you guys like that stuff? you think its boring? i like the guitars.

the wilbury situation is one we should handle with *porky pig stutter* delicacy

haha

I'm totally good with a selection of Petty-led Wilburys tunes

Definitely include "End of the Line," I think he sings all the verses on that right?

Yep!

Fun to hear "I Don't Know What To Say To You" in the middle of these arena/stripclub-ready rockers, a bit of Bob Wills.

"Baby's A Rock'n'Roller": Petty Doz Slade! Definitely not something I'll get to say again in this rundown. Another one of those stereotypical '70s moves found on these early albums.

"I Don't Know What To Say To You": A fun lil' '60s Dylan/Roger Miller pastiche. Would have been an interesting additional card in this album's pack, but maybe a left turn too far for the tracklist?

this thread should 100% include Mudcrutch…it's the band with TP on bass, Bernie Leadon's brother on 2nd guitar and anudder drummer… what could possibly be an argument to not include?

maybe people just really don't like the name MUDCRUTCH.

it is two albums of mud...its a commitment.

the only argument would be "you can't have music in which Ron Blair or Howie or Stan or Steve Ferrone weren't in the rhythm section… otherwise, those two records would be as canonical as Wildflowers and FMF…

other argument is that we already started chugging with the debut, no reason to go back in time

We can always do some Mudcrutch bonus tracks at the end if we want.

XP I think the Mudcrutch in question are the two reunion albums from the 2000s.

yeah 2000s-2010s shit is what I'm talking about… has the 70s Mudcrutch material ever been officially reissued?

Yes, the 2008 and 2016 Mudcrutch albums. Which, to me, are just Tom Petty records really. with Benmont and Mike Campbell.

I also like that Mike and Tom produced both albums. They are very homespun/DIY.

the 2nd Mudcrutch album is also the last album that Tom Petty recorded. :(

baby's a rock'n'roller - bubbleglam! i'm enjoying how the heartbreakers, on these first two albums, sound like a band that's still trying to figure out what exactly it wants to be, still working its way through its influences, next phase new wave dance craze anyways. a throwaway, but a fun one. (too many apostrophes for one song title though.)

i don't know what to say to you - next phase new wave folk craze. but this is just a goof, right?

wilburys yes stevie yes mudcrutch yes why not?

has the 70s Mudcrutch material ever been officially reissued?

A number of their original recordings appeared alongside some unreleased pre-Heartbreakers Petty solo stuff on the Playback box.

The rarities/unreleased discs from Playback:

Disc five: Through the Cracks
"On the Street" (1973 Mudcrutch outtake) (Benmont Tench) – 2:10
"Depot Street" (1974 Mudcrutch outtake) [Petty] – 3:26
"Cry to Me" (1974 Solomon Burke cover by Mudcrutch) [Bert Russell] – 3:06
"Don't Do Me Like That" (1974 Mudcrutch version) [Petty] – 2:47
"I Can't Fight It" (1974 Mudcrutch outtake) [Petty] – 3:00
"Since You Said You Loved Me" (1974 outtake featuring Al Kooper, Jim Gordon, and Emory Gordy) [Petty] – 4:40
"Louisiana Rain" (original 1975 version featuring Al Kooper, Jim Gordon, and Emory Gordy) [Petty] – 4:22
"Keeping Me Alive" (from 1982 "Long After Dark" sessions) [Petty] – 2:59
"Turning Point" (from 1982 "Long After Dark" sessions) [Petty] – 2:52
"Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" (demo from "Hard Promises" 1981 sessions) [Petty, Campbell] – 4:11
"The Apartment Song" (demo from "Southern Accents" 1984 sessions) [Petty] – 2:37
"Big Boss Man" ("Southern Accents" 1984 sessions) [Al Smith, Luther Dixon] – 2:41
"The Image of Me" (Conway Twitty cover; "Southern Accents" 1984 sessions) [Wayne Kemp] – 2:33
"Moon Pie" ("Let Me Up [I've Had Enough]" 1986 sessions) [Petty] – 1:05
"The Damage You've Done" (country version from "Let Me Up [I've Had Enough]" 1986 sessions) [Petty] – 3:16

Disc six: Nobody's Children
"Got My Mind Made Up" (from 1986 "Let Me Up (I've Had Enough)" sessions; Bob Dylan wrote different lyrics for his "Knocked Out Loaded" version) [Petty] – 2:51
"Ways to Be Wicked" (from 1986 "Let Me Up (I've Had Enough)" sessions) [Petty, Campbell] – 3:27
"Can't Get Her Out" (from 1986 "Let Me Up (I've Had Enough)" sessions) [Petty] – 3:11
"Waiting for Tonight" (from 1988 sessions featuring The Bangles on backing vocals) [Petty] – 3:30
"Travelin'" (1988 outtake from an aborted Heartbreakers album) [Petty] – 3:15
"Baby, Let's Play House" (Elvis Presley cover from July 1993 "Mary Jane's Last Dance" sessions") (Arthur Gunter) – 2:33
"Wooden Heart" (Elvis Presley cover from July 1993 "Mary Jane's Last Dance" sessions) (Bert Kaempfert, Kay Twomey, Fred Wise, Ben Weisman) – 2:09
"God's Gift to Man" (August 1992 outtake from an aborted Heartbreakers follow-up to "Into the Great Wide Open") [Petty] – 4:18
"You Get Me High" (August 1992 outtake from an aborted Heartbreakers follow-up to "Into the Great Wide Open") [Petty] – 2:48
"Come on Down to My House" (from July 1993 "Mary Jane's Last Dance" sessions) [Petty] – 3:05
"You Come Through" (demo from 1986 "Let Me Up (I've Had Enough)" sessions featuring Lenny Kravitz overdubs recorded in August 1995) [Petty / Campbell] – 5:15
"Up in Mississippi Tonight" (Debut 1973 A-side for Mudcrutch) [Petty] – 3:28

The latter disc has been made available by itself on streaming for awhile.

Interesting to see that "Don't Do Me Like That", "Louisiana Rain", and "The Apartment Song" were all trunk songs.

"Waiting for Tonight" is the best, we should incorporate that in here at a minimum.

oh the mudcrutch reunion? yeah we should def include those

sorry for the nonsense

"Waiting For Tonight" deserves a thesis in th3 basis of those Bangles harmonies alone.

i have to remind myself that their gigantic hit "last dance for mary jane" wasn't even on an album just at the end of their greatest hits package. i will put it up in the proper place chronologically. there is a funny moment on that interview i posted above where tom talks about his dislike for "bonus" tracks and live tracks at the end of albums. the label asked for a new song for the greatest hits album. i have always felt the same way. the worst for me is a greatest hits CD from a 60s/70s/80s bands that features reunion live tracks from 1996 at the end of the disc. so sad. make an extra disc for that nonsense and leave me out of it.

Refugee

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFnOfpIJL0M

OK, here we go.

What a difference Jimmy Iovine makes. This single BURSTS out of the speakers; every instrument is afforded its own crisp, warm space. Apparently Iovine hated Stan(ley)'s drumming.

I've heard it so many times that I'm having a little trouble finding anything to say about it. It's like describing the air outside. His voice was definitely not like other voices. That was one thing I remember from when I first heard this song. It sounded so different from all the 70s rock voices.

Petty's an interesting case: a punk-adjacent reactionary for whom stubbornness was a mode, not a fad. The spirit of "Refugee" pops up later to lesser effect in "I Won't Back Down" and to greater effect when he fought (and won) his case against raising record prices two years later.

super well-constructed song, solid recording, major leap in radio readiness, great yelping vocal (i have a thing for singers who choose keys that are almost out of their range e.g. petty, alex chilton, carl wilson), and obviously the song had legs, but on the other hand it's sort of standard-plus radio fare for its time and not really for me. there are a lot of things tom gets worked up about that don't resonate with me. standing my ground, not backing down, not having to live like a refugee, etc. sometimes i get worked up about waiting. i already miss power pop tom. i get why he had to move on. "listen to her heart" doesn't get you to the superbowl. sorta like when springsteen bulked up and developed that arena-sized bellow. he lost something too.

one thing he clearly retains from his power pop era is his guilt -- in this case that they broke up and now she's living like a refugee. whatever that means.

is this thing really a metaphor for his "breaking up" with his old record label? and now he's the one living like a refugee? that's even less relatable.

Wow, that's more specific than I had in mind. I thought he was spewing nonsense.

This is one where Campbell wrote basically the whole song and Petty added lyrics. I agree that as a career tentpole it's never been one of my favorites. I like it fine, but it's not like "American Girl" where I still get happy every time I hear it. But man, the sound of the thing, it's so huge. And I do love Petty's vocal performance, the talk-sing thing on the verses. One of my college friends was weirdly enraged by the line about "Who knows, maybe you were kidnapped, tied up, taken away and held for ransom" — he spluttered, "He has too many words in there!"

And it serves as a good album opener to what is more or less objectively his best album imo. Damn the Torpedoes isn't the record I have the most personal attachment to — that's Long After Dark, followed probably by Wildflowers — but track for track, it's just so good.

Album rock radio killed this thing well into the early '00s, but it hasn't bored me.

re: his voice. to me, he is the rare case of someone who became a much better singer later in life! a prettier singer. the exact opposite of springsteen. but, yeah, he was definitely trying to reach the cheap seats in the arena with this vocal performance.

(and by later in life, i mean well into the 21st century. more nuanced. etc.)

sometimes i can't believe that springsteen even has a vocal chord left to shred.

Petty's whine almost murders a few tracks (wait till we get to "Don't Come Around Here No More"). He found fresh inflexions on Let Me Up.

even as early as 1994 on a song like "wildflowers" its like a different person singing. i mean he always had ballads but something had changed in him. his approach to singing.

i love that whole album by the way. Wildflowers. that was one of my late in life TP revelations. doubt i heard it in full until years after it was put out.

(of course it was 15 years after Damn The Torpedoes and many lifetimes later for Tom Petty...)

in the classic albums doc about damn the torpedoes they go on and on about how important the shaker is to the song, and now that's basically all i hear when i hear this song

well, that and tench's incredible organ textures. the man knew exactly what the song needed

some real desperation in Tom's voice here, cuts right through a loud crowded smoky bar

for some reason i always used to confuse this song with "breakdown" and for a long time they were the two songs that defined tom petty for me.

You don't
Ha-ave
To break down and give it to me

"Refugee": Here we go...Such a hookmonster. Byrds with swag. This is the sound of levelling up. So much going on it's a little surprising that it's only 3:21. Seems to me that at a radio exposure and popular opinion level, this was *the Petty song* (alongside "Free Ballin' Fallin'") before the 21st century ascension of "American Girl".