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

to be fair, this would have been a lot of nameless power pop bands' best song by far.

GREAT song, love it so much. “I’ve stood in your gallery/ Seen what’s hanging from the wall.”

The singing doesn’t bother me but as noted above this is my default/baseline Petty album so I just accepted it as the way he was supposed to sound.

The bridge is perfunctory, would be my only note. Other than that, grade A work fellas.

Change of Heart - haven’t heard this in ages. Great tune, I like Petty in power pop riff mode

Speaking of underlicks, how about that pretty little Campbell filigree on the intro around the 10-second mark?

Finding Out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IljIy5lP0R4

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

this one works for me. the tempo, and all those slashing non-gendered guitar chords. (i just made that up. campbell loves omitting the 3rd of the chord, leaving you guessing whether it's major or minor.) the third part toward the end, which switched over to major, stands out for that reason. one cavil: shouldn't "looking over something" be "overlooking something"?

Change of Heart: wow - no memory of this. Really convincing early 80s power-pop, as others have noted. This definitely feels like it should have become a bigger hit and radio recurrent. The particular details in the mix make me think that Semisonic could have done well with this - or maybe I'm just casting about for a different lead singer. Hate to say it, but I'm not loving Tommy here. "CHAYYYYYYYYYYIIIINNNNGE" more like "cringe." I could see it growing on me, but the Adam Sandler baby voice on the bridge is gonna be tough to get past.

Very glad to confirm that he is not in fact intoning "I've stood in your cavity, to see what's raining from the walls!"

Finding Out: oh fascinating --- all of a sudden the blueprint for "Runnin' Down a Dream" comes into focus. Uptempo, urgent. Has any drummer ever grown by as big of leaps as Stan Lynch between the first couple albums and these last few? This has so much forward momentum, I love it.

Also a classic Petty lyrical position - somehow, finding a honey who takes him out of his river of hardcore loneliness becomes, primarily, an occasion for mulling back over the bad times. He doesn't *sound* like he's been rescued in the slightest!

iirc Petty singled out Lynch for particular praise on "Finding Out"

"Finding Out" is a jam, great side closer.

"change of heart" continues to prove that petty was the greatest to ever write songs about people being around or not around

"finding out" is a banger

i put that live clip up because i felt like you could hear how another producer might have made that song sound on an album. its heavier live. more rock. don't get me wrong i like how the album track came out. it sounds cool. but there is less weight behind it.

The Church Studio in Tulsa shares an original Shelter Records press release for Mudcrutch: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/64P5vPHp7FpKrGtv/?mibextid=oFDknk

We Stand A Chance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sMoU5esYcc

not typically Petty? trying to think of someone who does songs like this and i can't think...feel like it would fit some singer. i like it though. its weird. that guitar is atypical.

Another strong one imo. I like the piano, and the bridge is good (“My whole world is a fountain of flame,” dang dude). As to who else it sounds like, this is I can imagine Stevie Nicks singing.

one I can imagine …

this is the kind of pleasant surprise i was looking forward to in this thread. nicely put together song, big fat chinn/chapman-sounding guitar.

good song. is this the most toto-esque of petty songs?

maybe not toto, but the song does seem to fit a turn of the 80s lite fm framework that he doesn’t usually play with

i did think of Stevie. definitely. but someone else too. from that time period. maybe a pop country person? i dunno.

no, not pop country. hell, maybe its just j. geils again. actually!! i think it might be supertramp. with that jaunty piano. imagine the vocals being supertramp.

this album has the most generic song-titles. tom had a lot of them over the years. again, when i listen to tom i listen to an entire album and i never know the titles. other than the obvious ones. i won't remember any of these titles after we are done with this album. other than "you got lucky" and "change of heart".

and "Straight Into Darkness," I hope,.

TOM PETTY IN THE WILD: S1 E10 of CBS drama Tracker starts with "You Wreck Me".

Peter Stormare is in this episode...playing a total freak.

Straight Into Darkness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyPeUV9-po8

Years ago the ambiguity of the biblical trope bothered me; now I'm struck how what begins as a condemnatory song becomes a self-indictment. Tench's piano and those chiming guitars help -- going straight into darkness sure sounds attractive!

This is one of his most frustrating songs for me - the chord changes off the top set up an atmosphere, and he's trying to convey a haunted mood but the fist-pumping chorus deflates it all. I can't see his singing appealing to everyone either.

i won't remember any of these titles after we are done with this album.

I listened to this at least a half-dozen times and don't remember a thing about any of the non-singles.

wow those vocals are mcguinn-like. these well-packaged song segments don't really cohere into a song.

Springsteen's favorite Petty song.

I remember flyin' out of London
I remember the feeling at the time
Out the window of the 747
Man there was nothin', only black sky

One of my favorite Petty verses. Love this song, it's probably top 10 Tom for me, definitely top 20. The foreboding in the music matches the sadness in the words. The chorus does reach for anthemic but it resolves to a minor chord, leaving it musically and narratively in the shadows.

i don't think the chord changes at the beginning are haunting or intended to be so, just the start of a journey

the piano kind of reminds me of "king of pain"

and "The End of the Innocence" a few years later

just the start of a journey

... into darkness! I think they're pretty haunting.

We Stand a Chance: agreed that this feels like a big departure for these guys! Maybe it's the current Foreigner thread but I immediately thought of "Double Vision," sharpened and 80s-ed up a bit, inching towards Kihn/Survivor territory. The rather icy instrumental track highlights the creepier aspects of Petty's come-on, and I really like the almost countrified bridge. I dunno it I quite adds up as a track for me, but I like a lot of the details, like the handclaps and the searing guitar figure that comes in at the end.

The Stevie Nicks idea is very appealing. It would have been fun if management had tried to recapture the success of "Draggin'" by forcing another male/female duet every album. I want to suggest Juice Newton --- wrong label though. Ummm... Tina Turner??

Straight Into Darkness: This is cool! Another one where the updates Byrds sound takes them very close to R.E.M.... sounds great. Good title/hook for evoking this sudden collapse of love into misery sketched out in the first verse. The rest of the lyrics, apart from that great black sky line, feel a little nonspecific.

It also kinda feels like an (unintentional?) portrait of someone whose actual problem is a very deep-seated depression which they haven't recognized or articulated, so that his experience or perception of these individual situations keeps heading "straight into darkness." I'm gonna sit with that reading for a few listens.

There is this duet on The Wild Heart:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amOdiSljZa0

The Same Old You

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGPxPxO111c

faux-stones petty is fun! that guitar sounds awesome.

Yeah, imo one of the better songs about aging Boomers — no "Boys of Summer," but a good-natured barroom jam.

you'll never hear me complain about a good mott the hoople rip. well, i guess except for his sense that her rebellious david bowie self would really rather ride shotgun while he tours middle america.

did you know there's a cover band of women on the west coast who call themselves "nott the hoople"?

I have always loved the sneering five-syllable pronunciation of "politician"

this is very fun, especially the "let that sucker blast" verse. what is he actually trying to say though? in what way did this person have him fooled/confused? is he delighted, or bitterly disappointed, to realize they're still their same old self?

Oh, delighted I think. He remembers her back in '72! Whooee.

This album really does sound great, doesn't it? Punchy and bright but kind of grimy. Peak Iovine-era Petty, sonically.

Between Two Worlds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4y3YGUy_KFQ

Bob Seger's favorite Tom Petty song. kidding. but you totally would have believed me...especially when you heard the words "danger zone".