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

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.

re those last two, the wilburys sure knew how to write throwaways. the first one is evelavated by george's voice, and wow that dylan guitar solo in the second one.

Dylan doesn't take any solos on the album; they're all George, according to the credits.

that could be true but i have heard lots of dylan guitar solos and that sounds exactly like them. maybe george or someone was channeling dylan? or maybe they didn't count that as an official solo?

actually two guitars are soloing there, but the dylan(esque) one is prominent.

Hm! I'm still hearing George's jangle and easily identifiable slide.

I just glanced at the credits again and Harrison and Lynne are the only electric guitarists; the other three strum acoustic.

we're talking "like a ship" at 1:55? dylan only knows two notes when he solos, and those are the two. i guess it was a loving homage by harrison and/or lynne.

Oh! Sorry. I thought you meant "End of the Line."

“end of the line” is one of those songs that feels like it’s always been around

"End of the Line" is really lovely. Best-case scenario for an upbeat middle-aged rock star reflection song. It gains an added poignancy from Orbison's passing --- at only 52! --- and now from Harrison's and Petty's as well. Tom's verses are beautifully delivered, although I'll note that this would have been my first experience of misunderstanding him: "Sit around and wonder / What your ma will bring," I thought.

oh yeah for the record, "maxine" and "like a ship" didn't make the album.

those are from the "box set" they did later, yeah?

yah.

seems like "like a ship" should have though! wondering if dylan thought twice about giving it up...

don't think twice, bob...put it on the album.

don't know what happened there though.

so the Wilburys never played live, did they? no TV appearances or anything?

You know Dylan had had a good time when apparently he called George in 1990 or so and asked if they doing another of those Wilbury things

never heard these unused tracks before. "Maxine" seems like a Lynne/Harrison demo with not much Wilbury to it, and a pretty unfinished idea for a chorus. "Like a Ship" similarly feels like Lynne auditioning to produce Bob's next album but definitely has a little more going on with the very Beatles-y piano, drum fills and backing vox. i don't think it's better than anything on the album, so if they wanted to keep it short and sweet, they made the right final cut. woulda been a fine b-side though.

yeah I'm somewhat baffled that they didn't use those as B-sides, they certainly had enough singles from the album

I feel like this album sort of single-handedly invented the "just some guys in a room getting back to basics" template. it's such a warm relaxing listen, it's cool to see how much fun they are obviously having in that End Of The Line video.

idk maybe that was "invented" with Let It Be, now that I think about it

I love “End of the Line.” Especially poignant given that Orbison died so soon after. (At 52! Still adjusting to the idea that I’m now older than any of these guys were when they did this.)

“Tweeter” is fun — Petty played it the last time I saw him, at Bonnaroo in 2013, it was a good jam.

(Oops just saw Dr. Casino made the same point about Orbison’s age and death.)

just checked the date that i saw roy orbison give a free park concert in point lookout l.i. (with fireworks!) -- it was july 1987, just pre-wilburys i guess. at the time he was a john belushi punchline. the wilburys really cemented his reputation.

it was july 1987, just pre-wilburys i guess. at the time he was a john belushi punchline. the wilburys really cemented his reputation.

He was already well on the comeback trail by then. "In Dreams" was in Blue Velvet, he had a new song on the soundtrack to Less Than Zero (terrible movie, great soundtrack), and had just put out In Dreams: The Greatest Hits, an album of re-recordings. (I used to own it; haven't heard it in decades so can't say whether it's actually good or not.)

https://www.discogs.com/master/137148-Roy-Orbison-In-Dreams-The-Greatest-Hits

Someone posted in the main Roy Orbison thread that it was as if the entire industry wanted a comeback.

He co-wrote "Life Fades Away" with Glenn Danzig and it's terrific.

Free Fallin'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lWJXDG2i0A

https://i.discogs.com/p3hLYX1GfB7ypBrm7_I0nA3mfE8d5isVjpnQcJBw814/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:500/w:500/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTEwMjky/NjUtMTE4NTg1Mzgx/OS5qcGVn.jpeg

https://i.discogs.com/e9wjwxdbvQt6oO1ou0qXr2Qdln0DjmmMRwrJUNU6WKo/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:598/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTEwMjky/NjUtMTM2OTk1MzYz/NS0xNTg0LmpwZWc.jpeg

this song is inconceivably good.

all of a sudden its the 90s. just like that. it does not sound like the 80s.

His first top ten since "Don't Do Me Like That" (or "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around").

it must have taken an inconceivable amount of restraint not to add another bridge or break or chorus whatever. just take it and run with it.

Two things sink this for me - the airless, compressed Lynne backing vocals, and literally trying to drum up some tension in the third verse with pasted-in snare rolls.

No one, Petty least, expected Full Moon Fever, a solo album, to be the biggest-selling album of his career, selling more copies than Damn the Torpedoes. I'm not sure what zeitgeist it exploited -- I was there and still can't figure it out. His first album with three top 40 singles, all of which get airplay somewhere today ("I Won't Back Down," "Runnin' Down a Dream"), a bunch of other big ones on the mainstream rock chart ("A Face in the Crowd," "Yer So Bad," "Love is a Long Road"). The damn thing kept selling and selling well into 1990. A total triumph for Petty and the Wilbury sound.

ventura boulevard

the backing vocals are by far the best thing about the song, fuiud

Hoo boy here we go. Totally agree that this marks a shift toward the '90s — specifically the nascent AAA radio format, which "Free Fallin'" with its bright acoustic strumming was built for. (This is the year after "Fast Car" and the same year as "Closer to Fine" — the folkies are back, man.)

"Free Fallin'" is undeniable as a song imo, even though I've never loved the Lynne production. As a by-now longtime Petty fan, I was a bit put off by Full Moon Fever. It felt kind of light and slight to me. I like several of the songs on it, but mostly even the ones I like don't feel like they have much to them.

Actually, I don't need to tell you what I thought of it then because my college newspaper has helpfully archived my contemporaneous review lol: https://www.psucollegian.com/archives/arts/tom-petty-loosens-up-on-lightweight-solo-album/article_4e88464c-9d8d-5241-884b-857cb2be00fe.html

Please forgive my literally sophomoric prose (I was 19). But this is the conclusion: "Full Moon Fever is not a great album by any standards, and certainly not by Petty's; at the same time, though, its pleasingly effortless air underlines Petty's natural talent as a singer, songwriter and musician."

I'd make the same argument about Let Me Down (I've Had Enough): slight in intention, cumulatively impressive, lingers in the memory.

idk I can't separate the goodness of "Free Fallin'" from Lynne's creaminess. If it sounded like Indigo Girls or Tracy Chapman or a Wildflowers number it would've bored me.

(I don't choose to listen to "Free Fallin' these days)

Yeah I can't imagine putting on "Free Fallin'" on purpose, but that's partly because I don't need to, I'll hear it soon enough one way or another.