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

You Tell Me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjgY8OBf41k

this has some of that j.j. cale vibe to it but it gets bigger than j.j. liked to go. and longer for that matter. i like this song a lot. it has a really cool vibe. another one that could have been turned into a long jam live if they had wanted to go that route. plenty of room for piano and guitar solos. underrated! maybe. maybe its a fan favorite. i have no idea.

i think this is one of the few he never played live. i like it too. sheryl crow sort of borrowed that intro for "my favorite mistake." there's also maybe a beatles solo song this reminds me of but i can't place it.

The groove feels like kind of a warm-up for "Stop Draggin My Heart Around," listen to the first 10 seconds of each. Can definitely tell they're of close vintage.

I like "You Tell Me" a lot, classic Petty album cut — a lil moody, a lil groovy.

Like me.

another one that could have been turned into a long jam live

Intro would've been perfect for introducing the band.

Century City: Love the driving forward energy of this. Of all the things we've labeled as borderline "new wave," this feels closest to the mark. To that end, I wish the guitar lick that answers Petty's verse lines were a little louder and sharper in the mix, but maybe it would end up sounding too much like Elton's "Grow Some Funk of Your Own." Cool song. The shuffley kinda thing Lynch does at the end of the verses is one of my favorite things he's done so far. It gives this nice off-kilter, buffeted-by-the-good-times-in-the-city quality. The vocal there also reminds me of Bo Diddley's delivery rolling into the chorus of "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover."
In case anyone doesn't know, the real-life Century City is so named because it's the old 20th Century Fox studio backlot, which the studio decided was more valuable as a short-time real-estate sell-off, especially after the Cleopatra flop. I don't think that was much on Tommy's mind here, but the enthusiasm of the song kinda sells the idea of it as an Emerald City kind of place, or a sci-fi novel's obligatory glimmering capital. I once had "we're gonna live in spatula city" as my display name.

Don't Do Me Like That: What can I add? Great, anxious, bright radio-ready pop-rock. I don't LOVE the bridge but otherwise this is just hooky as hell.
To fcc, re: "if you were in the public eye / giving someone else a try" --- awkward yes, but in this way that seems very much in the tradition of rock's jealous creeps. John Lennon on "You Can't Do That" comes to mind. They're so wound up in their paranoia that even the language comes out detached from reality.

You Tell Me: No memory of this one - huh! It feels most of a piece with the midtempo tracks on You're Gonna Get It. The production keeps it a little punchier of course. The groove reminds me of some song by another artist that I can't place. I like the way Petty delivers "yeah the last thing that I needed was to finally realize that you were lying," sort of spilling over the boundary lines.

very much in the tradition of rock's jealous creeps. John Lennon on "You Can't Do That" comes to mind.

yes!

benmont tench fanboy checking in once again to give this one the official seal of approval

there’s only two songs from his subsequent career that I’d rank higher than “adequate, with a hook”

"You Tell Me" is the first of these; I don't suppose I could defend it as a better-crafted song than the hits on this album, but I find the mood and playing really gripping.

there's also maybe a beatles solo song this reminds me of but i can't place it.

Lennon's "I'm Losing You" (which postdates this)?

i'm searching on that Bm-A-E chord progression and all i'm coming up with are "wicked game" and "behind blue eyes," but i don't think it's either of those i had in mind. maybe it's nothing.

What Are You Doin' In My Life?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxEPG7o1-oo

An album track. The most pedestrian thing on DTT.

yeah, not a fave.

For a split second "You Tell Me" sounds a bit like King Crimson's "Heartbeat" (#onethread).

The chorus is catchy but this is one of the more sour songs in the catalog. Maybe based on a real experience with a stalker or something? I don’t know, but it’s pretty bilious.

Tomorrow's our last DTT tune. I forget: we doing B-sides too?

here tom's blessing and curse start to clarify. he can churn these things out in his sleep and the band can spiff them up to a nice sheen 'til they sound just fine on the radio. then they're over and you forget them.

Album filler maybe, but the hook pops into my head every once in a while. I like the solo too. It'd benefit from a shorter runtime and a real ending. Tom is surely thinking of Chuck Berry's "some stupid jerk tryin' to reach another number" at one point, and I think a "cha-cha-cha!" finish, like Chuck or the early Beatles, would have been handy here.

there are two b-sides for this album? if i am remembering right. i could just add them after the last album track tomorrow. as a special friday bonus.

That works! Is "Stop Draggin'..." among them?

^^That one's later (cut during the Hard Promises sessions).

Box set B's from Torpedoes:

"Casa Dega" (B-side of "Don't Do Me Like That," issued November 1979) [Petty / Campbell] – 3:37
"It's Rainin' Again" (B-side of "Refugee," January 1980) [Petty] – 1:32
"Somethin' Else" (live at Hammersmith Odeon, London, England, March 7, 1980; B-side of "Even the Losers" in Australia) (Sharon Sheeley / Eddie Cochran) – 2:05

just here to say I love tom petty and I sobbed unexpectedly when he passed a couple of yrs back, hopefully, I'll get some tp on vinyl soon

where has calstars been on this album btw

"what are you doin in my life" is a solid rocker that seems like it would be fun to play. i like the way campbell's solo screams

i don't think i'll post that eddie cochran live track tomorrow. someone else can. that is my favorite eddie cochran song by far.

casa dega is really good!!!

the verses of "what are you doin' in my life" bear a more than passing resemblance to the verses of madonna's "jimmy jimmy." but where she pays it off with a sublime chorus, he throws it away. which is to say i feel the exact opposite of this:

The chorus is catchy but

the verses of "what are you doin' in my life" bear a more than passing resemblance to the verses of madonna's "jimmy jimmy." but where she pays it off with a sublime chorus, he throws it away. which is to say i feel the exact opposite of this:

The chorus is catchy but

casa dega is really good!!!

― brimstead,

Yup! Shoulda made the album before "Louisiana Rain" -- more local geography.

i liked having the DDMLT single with Casa Dega on b-side exclusively for all those years. Kept it like a secret (that i listened to over and over)

Louisiana Rain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6y4-Rtf0W0

Casa Dega

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZlgx9uiK18

It's Rainin' Again

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

i am b-side myself that i've never heard casa dega before.

yeah i don't know why they chose louisiana rain over casa dega unless casa dega was recorded a little later? louisiana rain is a snooze.

"Casa Dega" sounds like an ode to something from the late '60s? My mind's tugged.

i guess i again get some bob seger vibes from it.

I definitely liked it better when I thought he was singing about "the wizard in the rain." I like it though! A little tether back to those country bar band slow-dance numbers. Seger is a good comparison. I'd probably prefer two really good short songs to one okay 6-minute one, but if they didn't have a wild new-wave rave-up to finish the album on, I think this is the right kind of conclusion for it.

I like "Louisiana Rain," even though it's somehow never quite felt like a "Tom Petty" song to me? Like he was trying on different songwriting guises and that was his country-rock one or something. I know it dates to Mudcrutch, right? Thematically, maybe he should have held onto it for another five years and put it on Southern Accents.

Love the verse about the "English refugee."

Been busy. Let's get this Friday Rock Block Petty Party on the move!

"You Tell Me": A patented mid-tempo chugger, slots in good at this point in the album. Would do better stuff like this in the future.

"What Are You Doin' In My Life?": For a guy who wasn't that famous (yet), TP sure had a problem with stalkers and possessive types. Cool pile-on middle-8. Campbell on the slide!

"Louisiana Rain": More studio noise at the beginning! Followed by Tench doing New Wave Procul Harum or something. All this giving way to...Thomas Earl Petty, Country Crooner. A fave discovery when I finally picked up this album. More slide! Seger-esque, yes. Also reminds me of somewhere Skynyrd could have gone as they eased into a Country groove.

"Casa Dega": Spotify threw this at me after one of the earlier albums wrapped up. A winner, nice little yearner. Could have slotted in at end of Torpedoes, or even as a penultimate track (especially if you cut that extra stuff off the beginning of "Louisiana Rain") without affecting the run time too much putting the album at around 40 minutes after the addition).

"It's Rainin' Again": A studio goof with the T.E. Petty Blooze Band. Kinda respect how obviously thrown away it is without taking up too much time, a mistake made by many other toss offs.

"Casa Dega" is great - never heard it before. The beginning sounds like a punchier take on Under the Boardwalk.

The palmistry reading in "Casa Dega" places the song in Cassadaga, FL:

Cassadaga (a Seneca Indian word meaning "Water beneath the rocks") is a small unincorporated community located in Volusia County, Florida, United States, just north of Deltona. It is especially known for having many psychics and mediums, and has consequently been named the "Psychic Capital of the World".

it had serious intense “empty street at 2am” vibes to me

(“Casa dega”)

Yeah the Bright Eyes album Cassadaga is named for the same place.

Petty's childhood home

Pilgrimage to Tom Petty's childhood home today - plus the neighborhood park nearby that he hung out at has been re-named Tom Petty Park. pic.twitter.com/kX5P8eCPG6

— stevecohen (@stevecohen) December 31, 2023

The Waiting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMyCa35_mOg