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

don't need no lawyers, we can settle this right now with the baton i'm currently a-twirling on my front lawn.

(xp)

i keep telling myself i'll get around to nebraska. gimme wool-capped word-slinging bruce.

I like "Something Big." I even did an illustrated version of it for some 8th grade English assignment.

born in the u.s.a. might be my fave album when all is said and done. i just can't deny that damn "glory days". i just can't. i love how that song is written. every single country singer should encore with that. they would blow the roof off of the place.

the wool-capped live in London thing. on Youtube. i think its the whole show. that is a humdinger. can't remember what year its from. it will make someone a believer if they aren't one.

^^1975, Hammersmith Odeon, officially released on the Born To Run box, with the audio getting its own release later.

i saw him like a month after that -- the show where they taped "santa claus..."

i love nebraska and i love big assed glittery bruce and i love wool-capped word-slinging bruce and i loved living in new jersey but i've never had much use for "glory days."

they passed you by

i was walking in, they were walking out, if i recall
correctly

"Glory Days" is my least favorite of the BITUSA singles, but I understand its lasting popularity. Speaks to some universal experiences. Still bothered that he says "speedball."

you know what gets me is that "sir" he borrowed from woody or pete or whoever. i cringe every time he says "sir." that's why i'm afraid of nebraska.

There are some sirs on Nebraska, but the writing on that album is great.

speedball

ha that's one of the few things i like about glory days. i love the non-awkward awkwardness. it works.

but you know who else uses that word? tom petty! in something big!

i always mishear "when i feel like clarence i start laughing.."

"Something Big": If the Travelling Wilburys were Petty, Dylan, Springsteen, and Zevon...

Again, I think this Petty doing Zevon Noir, but with a vaguer storyline just because. Love the reduction of the title as a punchline in the last verse. Another winner from this album.

The thing about Springsteen is if he had written it, the narrative *might* remain vague, but there would be way more details: more names, guy has a car we know the make and/or model of, daddy issues, maybe a babe appears etc.

otm

I'm okay with the sketchy details, but something a little more like a plot would be nice. This one is growing on me as I pay greater attention to the Heartbreakers. It still feels like there's a verse or two missing, but it's got a good sweaty southern flophouse noir vibe going.

Kings Road

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8nAdQQTJkM

tom looks askance at british punk?

vaguely remeniscent of that smithereens song? semi pet peeve -- when the drummer starts bashing away on every beat to simulate "excitement."

"a girl like you" is the one i had in mind.

“Kings Road” is pretty hooky, I like it. But it’s no “King’s Highway” imo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8ekIDJKDRE

this is awful. if you told me it was the result of someone asking an AI to write a song tom petty would've come with during a day off in london circa 1979, i'd believe you.

what does this mean: "they had socks and shirts and underwear / that i'd seen before but i don't know where"

probably at stevie nicks' house.

lol

https://i.imgur.com/pgdFLZ3.gif

"Kings Road": Okay, I was wrong a few days ago: there's not so much Zevon in this song (except maybe in the last verse). This is pleasant and catchy, but a step down from the rest of this album so far. Reminiscent of the rockers on Torpedoes or even The River.

spirited riff and performance, absolute throwaway lyric. suddenly Something Big seems like a ten-verse Dylan epic.

In the wild: Chris Smithers' cover of "Time To Move On" on the radio this afternoon.

every time my mind goes blank now, i sing to myself “im the nightwatchman” in the world’s worst petty impression

"Kings Road" is got a lot of push (at least here in Los Angeles) on FM radio - on both rock stations KMET & KLOS and even on KROQ a couple of times - this is the last we'll ever really see of fast New Wave Tom and some promoter somewhere thought they could get a crossover. (see also: The Kinks' Give The People What They Want which was also out at the same time). I always thought that this song was better that it actually was - I used it on mix tapes until I didn't

Hard Promises was the first Petty album I bought as a new album - for years it was my reactionary "what your favorite album?" answer but "The Waiting" is so spectacular (see also: The Beatles' "Rain", R.E.M.'s "Fall On Me") that it. Can't wait to get to Long After Dark which is definitely my fave.

Oh man I am gonna be insufferable with Long After Dark, fair warning.

oops... "that it perhaps gave the other tracks some extra heft that they don't really have"

This album would definitely land VERY differently for me without The Waiting right up top. I'll withhold overall judgment til the end, but I'm wondering, what's the basic narrative behind it? I know about the label feud concerning its pricing, but was it something they started working on before DTT fully took off? A rushed set of sessions amidst a frantic tour schedule as their star quickly rose? A blank-check luxuriation in the studio? And how did it land with critics at the time?

It did well critically and commercially. I still rate it as one of his top five best.

Haven't read the linked story (paywalled, but accessable via in cognito tab), but should be of interest

Tom Petty made his first Rolling Stone cover in 1981. This is the cover story: https://t.co/JqpZj3t8Fo pic.twitter.com/Lg8P61da36

— Richard Deitsch (@richarddeitsch) October 2, 2017

i like how in that interview i posted way up there somewhere tom says he thought that after he made a big stink about record prices that other artists would rally around him and nobody did! haha! oops.

Does anyone know how much of this stuff was played live in the early days, up to or around the first album? I assume Petty and cohort ran into the problem a lot of bands face, with a backlog of bangers they burn through before suddenly facing the challenge of writing new stuff between tours, with the distracting pull/perils of success beckoning and the label breathing down their necks.

Oh man I am gonna be insufferable with Long After Dark, fair warning.

Featuring some of my fave Petty album tracks, and iirc Springsteen's favorite Petty song, at least at the time.

JiC, that's what I've been wondering about. This album has been feeling like "somewhat underwritten material, but the band is really on fire from steady touring." I'm enjoying each track on some level, mind you, it's just feeling a little easier for me to find flaws. (So I hope I'm not coming off as a nit-picker to those who love this record wholeheartedly!)

Does anyone know how much of this stuff was played live in the early days, up to or around the first album?

To confirm my suspicion I just looked at thepettyarchives.com and early setlists include only songs from the debut, YGGI, and covers (i've always loved the way they do "Cry to Me"). Mid-1978 DtT songs get added to sets. My suspicion was that Hard Promises was kinda written on the fly. Not until June 1981 do Hard Promises' tunes show up.
xpost

Letting You Go

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzIG1KYBTDs

i have no memory of that being a video. i will make no great claims for this song. some good lines. i like the summer house mention.

The video is really cute! And genuinely funny. Nice fit for this lightweight, goes-down-easy tale of woe. One of my favorite cuts on this album so far.

this is pleasant. another one that wouldn't be out of place on a j geils band record. the bridge goes to unexpected melodic places. has there been a TP song yet with a satisfying relationship?

Here Comes My Girl and The Waiting, right? And Listen to Her Heart, depending on how you think things are gonna turn out.