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

did "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" hit as hard in 1981 as it seems?

Definitely stood out to me, and I was in peak top 40 mode right then, my sister and I listened to Casey Kasem every week so we heard it all.

haha, i think we all forgot about the last track on the album! its a good weeper too.

what the hell is that sound at the beginning of "You Can Still Change Your Mind"? some weird synthesizer?

"Gator On My Lawn" - can he get any more Florida?

i think i like "you can still change your mind" better than "stop draggin..." which is one of those little nothingballs that passes by on the radio almost demanding that you don't pay attention to it. there's that one insistant guitar synchopation on the chorus that's kind of nice.

I have no love for "Stop Draggin'" at all but it's a fun karaoke jam, where it belongs.

i love their vocals so much on draggin'. very no-big-deal cool attitude to both of them.

is "stop draggin" the only petty song to get a weird al parody?

A One Story Town

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7s1lx39sTxA

https://i.discogs.com/43r1qrvmswoydXYYNaelr8BRcb1ddIPsK5ouVF3a74c/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:593/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTgyODI2/Ni0xMjkzNDAzNTA2/LmpwZWc.jpeg

Welcome to 1982!

this song works for me. reminds me of an updated garage rock song. the sound is so simple and tom petty by this point just OWNS this sound. new romanticism flourishing all around him and electro robots hovering over his head but there is tom working those ancient riffs like his life depends on it.

he does have an undeniable sound here but in this case, to me, it sounds like it's propping up a one-story song. maybe it's also why i don't care for most of the garage-revival bands from this era.

Here we go! I love Long After Dark so much. Partly I will make the case that it is a top-tier Petty album — easily in my top 5 — but partly also I know it's because this is where my personal investment in Petty really takes off. I got this album for Christmas! It was one of a handful I had asked for, and this is when my total record collection was probably still under 15 or 20. Seminal to 13-year-old me. I thought he looked cool on the cover, I loved the red tinting, I loved the evocative title. And I think that side A is basically as strong an album side as you get in the whole catalog.

To that end, I love "One-Story Town" as a kick-off. Sets mood for the album, which teeters between defiant and defeated all the way through but never gives up (or, for that matter, backs down). Plus when I was 13 I was deeply impressed by the casual way he sighs "The same shit goes down."

Stan Lynch never sounded so good than on LAD.

lol, i don't recall reading x'gau's T.P. reviews. what a dick!

is "stop draggin" the only petty song to get a weird al parody?

lol, i don't recall reading x'gau's T.P. reviews. what a dick!

― gneiss, gneiss, very gneiss (outdoor_miner), Monday, April 22, 2024 10:23 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

nobody deserves to be compared to billy joel

lol, i don't recall reading x'gau's T.P. reviews. what a dick!

You could build a hell of a solid record collection just by collecting everything Christgau hates and ignoring everything he likes (unless there's a second opinion available).

it happens twice a year like clockwork: i agree with unperson!

You Got Lucky

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeeRjAOEg3o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtLpZWNyM0I

MTv!

take your pick. song or early iconic mtv video that would end up influencing a generation of dusty rock band videos.

it's really weird how the shittiest glib dickhead music critic got to be "the dean"

yeah, but, deans are usually reviled and/or feared and/or made fun of, right? it just reminds me of the guy in Animal House.

ignoring everything he likes

You'd have to forego Miles Davis!

good late night driving song -- sounds more like 1982 than his previous stuff.

...and the new york dolls. xpost.

Tench reportedly hated playing the synth.

This song only got to #20 (it did top the mainstream rock tracks chart) but thanks to MTV it felt ubiquitous, no?

this song was part of the landscape, sure -- and i wasn't a big mtv watcher so it must have been on the radio a lot.

...and the new york dolls. xpost.

was gonna say just this. and also loads of wonderful music from Africa

You'd have to forego Miles Davis!

That's why I added the caveat "(unless there's a second opinion available)".

I hate the New York Dolls and always have. And Christgau and I have very different tastes in African music, I think. But back to topic. I liked this song a lot when I was, like, 11. It was one of the first 45s I ever bought. I guess I heard it on the radio, because we didn't even have TV, never mind MTV, when I was a kid.

it felt ubiquitous, no?

absolutely
xxpost

yeah, I would think the whole band endured the production of this song with gritted teeth, having to do something like devo and those foo foos who can't play real instruments in England. Who's the one guy in the band who was the least "are you sure Bob or the Stones done it this way," according to Zanes or Zollo?

I would say also Mad Max/Road Warrior was a big big influence on video directors…

Petty calls Benmont their enforcer or purist -- he's the one who dictates what they can do.

Yeah, Petty said the Mad Max film had impressed all of them.

this was an early mad max mtv homage though. before journey and others?

road warrior only came out the year before.

Yeah, Petty said the Mad Max film had impressed all of them.

It didn't make it into my book, but someone told me a story of running into Cecil Taylor walking out of a showing of The Road Warrior. He loved it.

“you got lucky” is possibly my favorite petty song. perfect but if late night sleaze, incredible arrangement (campbell’s baritone guitar >>). also if tench hated playing the synth too bad, because that’s one of the legendary synth moments a decade that did not lack for them

yeah love that synth so much

The usual don't-trust-the-creator axiom applies.

Classic tune, and I feel like the bed of slightly mournful synths with tasty guitar licks gave Mike Campbell some ideas.

Deliver Me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sXP17MbvBQ

Is it my imagination that the riffs sound tougher and the drums louder?

Yeah I think the production has taken an ‘80s turn here although I don’t know what exactly Iovine did to juice it.

I think “Deliver Me” is great, one of my absolute favorite Petty album cuts. Big crunchy riff, soaring chorus. And the bridge gets me:

Sometimes I wonder if this is worth the trouble
Sometimes I wonder if this is worth the fight
I never have made my mind up about it
I've just decided to let it all ride

I feel ya Tom.

this one comes back to me postage due. but i don't want to stop the tom love. it does sound great while it's transpiring.

this sounds like something he might have written for del shannon or roger mcguinn. for some comeback album. their version would have lots of female backup singers. or maybe not. i dig it. i like the E Street piano. i'm realizing throughout this whole thing that i am a very definite tom petty ALBUM listener. i enjoy his whole album experience. divorcing things and listening to them one by one is a little challenging. songs that would just flow into the next album track taken on their own can sound different to me. i dunno. its weird. he obviously had a ton of great singles. but i think of him as an album guy.