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

More shocking than the loss of their home and possessions (estimated at about $1 million) was the fact that investigators determined that the fire was not an accident. According to a report, an arsonist had drenched the house's back staircase in lighter fluid. Petty and his family were deeply disturbed by the fact that someone had wanted to kill them.

“We were shaken for years by it,” Petty admitted in Paul Zollo's 2005 book Conversations With Tom Petty. "It’s sort of like being raped, I would imagine. It really took a long time. And it was 10 times as bad, because you knew that somebody just went and did it. Somebody tried to off you.”

Petty said that, as a result of the blaze, he had trouble using the word "fire" in his lyrics. But he did write one of his most famous tunes about the experience: "I Won't Back Down," which appeared on 1989's Full Moon Fever, was inspired by defiant feelings toward his attacker. "I'll stand my ground / And I won't back down," he sang.

hmm. nice riff, nice chords. they definitely seem much more in their comfort zone. gotta say it's not grabbing me after the first couple listens. weak chorus, maybe. the chords are good but idk if i need to hear them THAT many times.

the chart performance doesn't really surprise me either --- can believe this was welcomed by rock radio on the sound and narrative alone, but if you're looking to top the Hot 100, "vague list of things that I'm tired of hearing about on TV" might not be the most direct route. unfortunately, Tom doesn't quite have Billy Joel's ear for syllables...

"jammin me" is a banger, idk if i have ever heard it on the radio but it def belongs there. gotta think the hold steady had this in their subconscious when they wrote "stuck between stations."

i have never heard any of the album's other songs, but i am excited to

I'm not sure I would've put my money on Tango in the Night outselling its two contemporaries, but then it was the weirdest, most out-of-time album of the three.

After a couple more listens and a viewing of the video, I'm willing to upgrade "Jammin' Me" to "okay.". Some of that is just delayed relief upon realizing it was neither an attempt at reggae or an anti-reggae screed, as I had long feared based on the title. Maybe I had crossed wires with Tom's desire to "destroy disco," which I encountered in the 1995 History of Rock n Roll TV doc before I knew much of anything else about him.

He avoided cod reggae for a long time but he gave in in the end.

when?

“Don’t Pull Me Over” on Mojo

Runaway Trains

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bW9FSMJ0JI

where Tom Petty, still steamed about "The Boys of Summer," records his own.

yes, this song uses the henley interval. otherwise known as The Devil's Chord.

five minutes of nothing as far as i'm concerned. sorry tom.

I love the sound, the way the guitars are given a shriller, serrated tone in the last minute; the feel of Lynch's fills; the yearning in the chorus. I do agree it's not about anything but itself: overtones.

I love this song. Great sweeping chorus. The production is soooo 1987, like it almost couldn’t have been made any other year.

Petty has said that Campbell handled the more "produced" material like "Runaway Trains" and "All Mixed Up."

this isn't terrible, but it ain't great

it's a vibe. more than a song. i agree.

I will say that the lyrics on the chorus are pretty weak. Runaway trains do usually have an actual explanation, and I don’t think we need to bring crying angels into this at all.

oof, I wish I liked this more. i appreciate the Gabriel-isms of the verses and the bridge, it's a cool soundscape. but Tom's melody and his performance aren't capitalizing on it... he's just kinda hanging around. and then the chorus takes us into this awful form of spaciously bland soundtrack-album VH1 ballad-rock.

glad the band was trying things, and glad there are folks here who love it!

A couple months after the arson attack on his house TP&TH did a string of shows at the Universal Amphitheater. Hilburn (goddamn it) writes about the shows and interviews TP who doesn't really talk about the new album at all. I lucked into seeing the third night - it was one of the best shows I'd seen at that point. The "Should I Stay Or Should I Go" cover was in, Roger McGuinn showed up, and the live "Runaway Trains" was 100x better. The Jacksonville show the following month is up on YouTube but I wish I could find recordings of any of those LA shows.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phSRV57fp4s

That's a good interview. You get a solid sense of Petty's thinking, and can read between the lines about his self-critique (when he makes fun of the glasses he was wearing...).

The Damage You've Done

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wc4m0W7Xk4

@evelynbaron2004
4 years ago
It was Stan Lynch who said about the album Let me up I've had enough that the title spoke for itself but in this song I don't know if Tom is writing about Stan himself or his first wife; I really like it because it's full out raunchy and he is so fucking pissed off and lets it rip.

Improvised in the studio, Petty sez. He yelled chord changes as they jammed. Another good throwaway.

decent album cut. girl problems used to inspire his best melodies; now we get two-chord vamps. at least it's sprightly, if not full out raunchy.

definitely more proof that he didn't need anyone else to produce his albums for him. sounds great. though there are nine engineers listed for this album. so he needed a little help.

I don't hear "girl problems," I hear, "I've got an album to deliver."

Live version 1992:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvmAo7nFtR0

cool to learn that "the damage you've done" was improvised in the studio, it def feels that way. band sounds great!

"runaway trains" seems to be going for the "the waiting" and "even the losers" territory but the writing isn't quite strong enough to get there. i like the production tho

Tomorrow: Springsteen's favorite Tom Petty song.

this song was played a lot on WQMF, the AOR station in town, which very often went for shit kicker rock, which did the trick for lots of people in town unwilling to listen to 80s country.

"in town" = louisville

ooh did you get to see squirrel bait a bunch? if so: jealous. that's what i think of when i think of 80s Louisville.

love them so much. they were the bob dylan of grunge rock. nirvana were the tom petty.

yeah this is fine. at least the band sound like they're comfortable in it.. the whole feeling is kind of a good-natured jam in the garage by now-very-seasoned pros. unfortunately, this also means nothing about it really suggests a feeling of damage having been done. the words are serving the same function as the licks, "this is fun to play," I think.

Howie's chorus harmonies are nice.

That live version is amazing - the riff is almost "Satisfaction," but they play it like they're in Endless Boogie. Was that during the Smack Years, or before?

1992, pre-smack

it occurred to me that after this album is the first wilburys album chronologically. you guys are going to have to remind me if we are doing the whole thing or not. then after that tom's first solo album and then back to the heartbreakers.

i know we are only two songs in but it already feels like tom got his personality back after that last album experience.

Wr can talk about "Ladt Night," his solo Wilburys number

Last

Talking about the whole Wilburys album could be fun, and it's where Full Moon Fever came from. But at a minimum, should include "End of the Line," he sings the verses and I've always thought of it as a Petty song. (If just for the way he sings, "when somebody plays/'Purple Haze'".)

I did see Squirrel bait once, in 1986, and was shaking in my 15 year old boots, seeing such a fantastically exciting band comprised of guys from my town, each about four years older than me (one member had known since I was very very young, his parents were friendly with mine)… saw various spin off bands involving searcy and Daughtry very often in the late 80s … while indie rock people look back on that band fondly, there is no question that Slint has utterly eclipsed them in town and probly everywhere else …I note that there is a presently active ILM thread re: David Grubbs' second best known project

i was on a panel with david grubbs once and i decided not to gush and play it cool but those SB albums meant a ton to me when i was a teen. he was very nice. and he knew my friend john armstrong who was also a louisville person. i knew john in philly though.

I'm cool with "End of the Line," another mostly Harrrisong ftr, which you can hear in the chords.

It'll All Work Out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVEXkLht6hQ

tom discovers zen, mandolins, three-quarter time. pretty nice. no wonder springsteen likes this; it was created in his image.

One of his best ballads.

Yeah lovely little song.

Lovely is the word. As the thread goes on I've come to be fond of all these songs in the "No Second Thoughts" lineage, and this is the most fully worked out. Very pretty arrangement, nice unhurried performance. A welcome return to form.