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

As a Petty fan I love that he got to be in a band with those guys, can you imagine? You're this kid in Florida growing up on all of that and you end up in a band with Dylan AND a Beatle, plus Roy f'in Orbison? Plus obviously the Lynne connection was crucial.

What was the perception at the time in terms of Petty's membership here? Did he lend the group youthful street cred, or was it like "wow, he really is washed up, I guess?" Or was Harrison's recent success lifting everybody's boats?

I think mostly the former, he was the MTV star of the bunch. Tho Cloud Nine definitely gave Harrison some spark too.

Petty's crankiness meant he was a less blithe spirit than some of the older Wilburys.

Dirty World definitely the lesser of these two songs, but a total dopey charmer, letting the album settle quickly into its easygoing pace. I like the "oh-oh-oh" backing vocals (though if there's anywhere on the record I could do with a little less Lynne cleanliness, it's probably there). And again, the extra cooks in the kitchen add more changes and amusements, like the "dirty world, it's a dirty world" section. I imagine that's George's idea, and it's a good one.

I'm very ignorant of Dylan post-Street Easy, so the sexed-up lyric seems of a piece with "New Pony," but I gather he has a big born-again Christian phase somewhere in there also. Not sure how exactly this all fits in, but the song is really more about the fun you can have singing about this stuff, than the stuff itself. It's fun!

Rattled

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_7FAEvjN7M

Last Night

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

"Rattled" is my least favorite Wilburys song. Totally expendable. Dave Edmunds could've written better.

The Orbison bits on "Last Night" are hilarious.

"rattled" is a hookless genre exercise. "last night" verges on too cute. but it is cute. i wonder what this album would have sounded like if roy wood were at the helm instead of jeff lynne.

good short film on the first album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUQ_gj-biIc

George looks so happy.

I've always liked "Last Night" as a cod-reggae trifle. Big OK Boomer vibe, but in a likable way. (True of the album as a whole, obv.)

this thing is exhausting to watch. that same beat and tempo for so many songs. such a slog. still like those george and roy hits and i will always love the TP songs but the rest of it...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKvCS7nXHe4

played the wilburys album yesterday and “last night” calmed my newborn so i have to like it

"Rattled" is fine! It could do with a less clattering recording of the rhythm section, but no song with Roy Orbison doing that little purring "rrraaaow" can be all bad. I get that it's a little bit "Paul McCartney album track with special guest Cliff Richard" but, I mean, that's kinda who these guys are.

"Last Night" definitely risks falling into Gone Troppo territory, but the chorus is a real charmer, and once again there's infinite value in having Roy pop in for two lines while everyone else contributes unpretentious backing vocals. As for our thread's protagonist, this is easily the most relaxed and in-the-pocket Petty's sounded for several albums now. Probably his best showing since "Dogs on the Run" - and notably, he seems to have entirely shed his weird bag of strangled and swallowed vocal tricks. I have to wonder if Lynne or Harrison or someone pushed him in that direction.

"She lowered the boom" is a rather odd choice of images, though.

That's the line that apparently pissed off the PMRC (no joke).

I discovered Petty during the Poppy Bush Interzone era of albums, so to listen to his early gargle-whine came as a shock.

lol whereas I was a bit "who is this mellow crooner??"

(with the Lynne stuff in particular, which will never be my favorite. but I'll go on about that when we get to Full Moon Fever.)

But you were fine with Wildflowers, no?

Oh yeah, one of his best.

And his singing isn't my issue with the Lynne stuff, I think his voice mellowed quite nicely. Just don't like the production.

Not Alone Any More

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cko3dBWiyus

Congratulations

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uNnVjcRqZ0

i really like that roy song despite the jeff lynne roller rink sound.

and i like dylan's vocals on "congratulations".

oh I love that Lynne synth -- it's simulating Roy going down the drain.

I think I read that Dylan brought "Congratulations" almost fully written and they helped change a few of the verses.

two good ones, where the kitsch in the arrangements work in the songs' favor.

i'd totally buy that about Congratulations, it sounds like mostly dylan (except the harmonies when singing the title!)

congratulations is such a fun little song

I quite dig Harrison's solo in "Congratulations."

very succinct. i also like those little ELO embellishments that float through.

Congratulations is one of the ones where, Lynn-wise, I could lose the synth, but definitely not the backing vocals. And the group "congratulations" are essential, obv. Agreed that Harrison's playing also elevates it a lot. Kind of the best-case scenario for the whole premise: everybody brings in some seemingly by-the-numbers songs and then, as a team, elevates them with their own special set of skills.

*Lynne

Heading For The Light

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VarURT-pH8o

Margarita

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2Au3QoU-EE

i do feel like jeff lynne knew how to bring the george out of george and make him really sound like george. his voice. his guitar. on this and cloud nine.

Fifteen years earlier, this Harrisong would've been a sententious affair; now he wrote this shiny, tuneful, ebullient death song. The harmonies and Jim Horn sax are essential.

The opening synth line on "Margarita" -- the Wilburys as Kraftwerk? Then it settles into its Bo Diddley groove. Great throwaway lines ("She wrote a long letter on a short piece of paper").

i do feel like jeff lynne knew how to bring the george out of george and make him really sound like george. his voice. his guitar. on this and cloud nine.

― scott seward,

Totally. Cloud Nine was Lynne's first production for these guys and probably the best? George as co-producer kept the Lynneisms in check.

"Heading For the Light" was like Dylan's "Congratulations" a song George brought basically completed.

speaking of production and jim horn, i like some of the stuff on this 1979 roy album. i think there are a couple of 70s-saxy slow jams too. but i just like the way this song sounds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecZPP2ONQKA

the george song is a good one. not sure what to think about "margarita" -- lots of different things spliced together. it's almost like a studio demo of "hey look what i can do with all these famous guys."

Oh this is the Disco Orbison album! xpost

t's almost like a studio demo of "hey look what i can do with all these famous guys."

why it works imo

also--that's the Wilbury conceit!

Yeah Laminar Flow rules and I’m not even a big Roy guy!

My mom loved "she wrote a long letter, on a short piece of paper."

On the other hand, I remember playing this album in my apartment, circa 2005, for J. Blount (still lurking? idk), him being fairly skeptical throughout, and completely abandoning ship at Margarita's "wang a lang a" backing vocals.

Alfred otm re: Heading for the Light - can EASILY imagine the turgid version buried in the folds of Here in the Material World. But this one's delightful.

Knowing blount I'm shocked he didn't decide that "Margarita" moment was the moment to stay.

Tweeter And The Monkey Man

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PabG3nJRu3k

End Of The Line

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

"end of the line" is the one for me. i think its the best thing that came out of this project.

"Tweeter and the Monkey Man" is Dylan's Springsteen piss-take. I love the AND THE WALLS CAME DOWN interlude. That's why we go to the Wilburys.

"End of the Line" is another mostly George song, but I can't imagine it without Tom Petty's generous, relaxed vocal: he's like an old dear friend paying respects.

Maxine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Zcnj3lTczI

Like A Ship

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

and there you have it. onward to Full Moon Fever.

As a kid, I was mildly scandalized by the use of "Hell," but understood that wild rock and roll band singers would be the types to use language like that.

Apart from all the Jersey window-dressing, which is certainly Springsteen, this seems of a piece with many a Dylan story-song, from "Lily" to "Black Diamond Bay" and even "Hurricane" --- the shift to the first person observer at the end is straight out of the latter two. It all works, not the most exciting crime spree song narrative but I think he just wants it to rhyme, man. I'm not sure what to make of Tweeter's trans status... It could certainly be handled worse.