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

Came in hearing the title line as "on the train to work," and can't shake it. This is another reasonable bloozey groove with a strong central idea and kind of an undercooked lyric. At this point I should just accept that Petty is fine with conveying a feeling without conveying a plot.. but I guess I like plot. The strange little burst of scatting, heading into the fadeout, is great.

can't wait to hear what y'all think about next week's album -- a real uh change of heart

I've never loved "Between Two Worlds," feels like a B-side to me. A Foreigner B-side! It's OK, just kinda there. There isn't really a hook, just a groove.

And yeah, next week gets interesting

https://rockandrollglobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/image3A49945_Glitch4.jpg

A Wasted Life

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

Heartbreakers Beach Party

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

"A Wasted Life" = poignant closer.

Love the "uh-uh-owww, uh-uh-oww"

It's a nice song, good album closer.

i dig the otis redding bassline. mike campbell really lays back on this one.

We should note "Keeping Me Alive," kept off the album at Iovine's insistence and Petty's eternal regret.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xribnUH-Q-w

In the Zollo book Petty says that "Jimmy" was on the phone more often than he was in the studio.

pleasant, low-key amble. feels like a return to "No Second Thoughts" territory. also reminds me a little of Leon Russell's lovely "Back to the Island." this album could maybe use just a pinch more of this kind of breathing room sprinkled around. or even have a track that starts like this and builds to those crunchy guitars, idk. spread out, explore the options. just don't swallow your tongue so badly on those "don't"s.

Rebels

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Xu9QOlJgEg

https://i.discogs.com/Uj0zIzldaKRejEZIESCJqKeARM7xBU47mxkt8pdJhgs/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:596/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTQwNzcx/Ny0xNTg1MTcyNzA0/LTkyNjYuanBlZw.jpeg

This is the song during the recording of which he infamously shattered every bone in his right hand after punching a wall.

Tom Petty and his crew enter the '80s. According to him, the 1983-1984 period was the first time they didn't tour. They hung out in El Lay, met Dave Stewart, did a lot of coke.

and took three years to make a record.

those mean ol' blue bellied devils.

they deserved a cocaine break though. they had been touring and recording non-stop for years by that point.

so this song is about a loser but his fans still waved the confederate flag when they played it live, right? kinda like the born in the u.s.a. conundrum. i love thinking that the guy in the song was arrested for having too many tickets which is such a sad way to go to jail. and then having to be bailed out only to be kicked out of the car. into a thicket!
of course i don't know that he was arrested. just that she picked him up and paid his tickets. its a good line.

I love the rhythm guitar lick, the HEY HEY HEYs by Stan and Howie, the horns -- it's Petty's gargled singing that sucks.

the synth horns are not my favorite tbh, but as alfred said, they have entered the 80s

I'm pretty sure they're real horns?

you're right, it's something called the "heart attack horns." they're so dinky and tinny sounding tho

they sound synthy to me. did they have synthesizers in the civil war?

the drum sound is 80s crappy too.

i'm surprised that tom went for the synth-pop drum sound. i don't mind it because i'm used to it. being a synth-pop fan. i don't mind how the whole thing sounds its just a minute too long. exactly one minute too long. and i don't mind his garbled dylan vocals. he is trying to personify a drunk hick after all.

his singing sounds great on the chorus. a hey hey heyyyyyyy

Petty used the confederate flag onstage and in promo materials
http://images.eil.com/large_image/TOM_PETTY_&_THE_HEARTBREAKERS_SOUTHERN+ACCENTS+TOUR+1985-336893.jpg

To be fair, he recanted later in his career.

Petty's experience with the Confederate flag is interesting and I think not uncommon for sorta-liberal but not-very-political white Southerners of his generation. He ended up eventually totally rejecting it. He wrote a short piece about it for Rolling Stone in 2015 that's paywalled, but the gist is here: https://www.billboard.com/music/rock/tom-petty-confederate-flag-essay-6633537/

As for "Rebels" itself, one of his great anthemic choruses and great portrait-of-a-loser lyrics. "Honey don't walk out/I'm too drunk to follow ..." Even the blue-bellied devils line I think passes muster in character, as one more dodge the guy uses to avoid culpability for his own problems. Petty has some sympathy for the narrator, but he hardly lets him off the hook for being a dumbass.

this is... difficult to accept

Southern Accents was the first album I forgot to fill out the Columbia House "do not want" card for, I remember it vividly, I was def a fan at the time and it was a letdown.

The least coherent album he'd ever record. Look at the credits. On one hand David Stewart producing the honking gimmicky things ("Don't Come Around Here No More," "Make It Better," etc.), on the other hand Jimmy Iovine, called by Petty in desperation, in charge of the trad "Heartbreaker" songs, with several others marooned, to Petty's regret, as b-sides. Then he included Robbie Robertson's production of "The Best of Everything."

iirc there was a very good long read somewhere about the making of "Don't Come Around Here No More", anyone know the link?

https://medium.com/@blueknightgirl75/every-song-tells-a-story-tom-petty-and-the-heartbreakers-don-t-come-around-here-no-more-8ae5c70b2b31

I love this:

The original inspiration was a romantic encounter that producer David A. Stewart of Eurythmics had with Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac.[4] On The Howard Stern Show, Stewart explained that the title's phrase was actually uttered by Nicks. She had broken up with Eagles singer and guitarist Joe Walsh the night before,[5] and invited Stewart to her place for a party after an early Eurythmics show in Los Angeles. Stewart did not know who she was at the time, but went anyway. When the partygoers all disappeared to a bathroom for a couple of hours to snort cocaine, he decided to go upstairs to bed. He woke up at 5 a.m. to find Nicks in his room trying on Victorian clothing and described the entire scenario as very much reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland. L

i've always liked "don't come around here no more". i haven't listened to the album in a long time though and i probably don't remember half of it. "rebels" is no fave of mine but it actually sounded better to me today than i remember it sounding.

dave stewart really didn't know who stevie nicks was??? for real??? a british guy had no knowledge of stevie nicks joining a british institution and helping to make them one of the biggest pop acts in the world? get the fuck out of here.

Petty may have been Stewart's first production-for-hire job? In that three-year period he produced Daryl Hall, Dylan, Feargal Sharkey, and Mick Jagger.

Here's where I say that other than his Eurythmics work I can't stand him as a producer: inappropriate guitar wank, redundant psychedelia, bloated songs. He contributed none of these things to Eurythmics. Fascinating.

dave stewart the year rumours came out...

https://i.discogs.com/b1CI_YYbL-XjEFifew0333oOggTruitG2Hifu3V5pCo/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:600/w:597/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTMwMTM0/NzYtMTY0Mjk3MDI4/Ni04MDQ0LmpwZWc.jpeg

yeah i do kinda think i have annie to thank for why i love eurythmics. or maybe he had just used up all his good ideas in eurythmics. i've never heard a single thing he's done on his own worth listening to.

also, for the record, as much as i love the early stuff and singles, Savage is by far my fave Eurythmics album. post-Southern Accents even!

i mean, as far as dave goes, he's been making music since the 70s. he might have been tapped out by the 80s. jeff lynne certainly was. though jeff started in the 60s. not everyone is Tom Petty.

not everyone is Tom Petty.

thread motto right here

Totally agree there are bad production choices all over the place on this album. On the plus side I think Petty was trying out new things (horns, female backing vox, sitar ...), but on the minus side a lot of them are misfires. We can talk more about DCAHNM when we get there, but that's a fascinating song in the catalog — I've never loved it, but I think it also did a lot to propel Petty's career to its late '80s/early '90s prominence.

i still think if this is his big money bloated celebrity producer cocaine album its not embarrassing or anything. still listenable. from what i remember! like i said, haven't heard it in forever.

Savage is by far my fave Eurythmics album

Mine too and it's become a common opinion; it's especially beloved by UK critics.

Christgau wrote the following about his dismissal of Annie Lennox's Diva: "he kept her dishonest." Wrong. She deserved the credit (and I love Diva).

Southern Accents is their weakest album to date, but, yeah, not an embarrassment.

In the Zollo book Petty was like, "yeah, everyone recommended this hot English keyboard guy, Dave Stewart, who did 'Sweet Things Are Made of This' then I meet him and he's not a keyboard guy at all! He's a guitarist!" (Annie Lennox played most of the complicated synth/keyboard parts).

When I interviewed Keith LeBlanc last year, he had some nice things to say about Lennox (he played on Diva):

And Annie Lennox, she was really cool, too. She’s a real singer. A lot of singers have to punch in things and get Auto-Tuned in, but she would go in the studio, just nail it right there, with the musicians. So there was a lot of collaboration there. She left room for that, she was really open and nice, really honest, you know? When it comes right down to it, for something to be really good, it’s got to be really honest. It can’t be fake good. It’s got to be actual good. And Annie left room for that.

It Ain't Nothin' To Me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKiaaPd5RLY

two minutes too long. haha, okay, this sounds like cocaine for sure.

i like that little tom verlaine-y part they pop in there a few times. could live without most of the rest of it. rock guys playing funk. somehow the stones made it work.

Wait till you hear "Make It Better"!

I think "Make It Better" works better than this one, which is just a mess sonically and structurally.