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

Let's keep in mind: "Free Fallin'" was the third single after, in order, "I Won't Back Down" and "Runnin' Down a Dream."

its really slow. that beat is so slow. its slow and minimal. though there is a lot going on. it doesn't feel like a lot when you hear it. that voice just carries the whole thing. if you hear it in a car that voice just cuts through everything. i'll bet a lot of country singers and songwriters were like, damn, i want that song. how do i write a song like that? they had to be jealous.

before i forget...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9iAqzfJ9Gw

and then there is...this...

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pie-fumrkRM

otm

this is a very popular song for african-american reaction video people to listen to and declare a masterpiece.

Pimp C and Bun B have the best taste in white music

Free Fallin' is fantastic imho. As usual Tom's having trouble keeping the lyric entirely on topic from line to line, but this is one of the ones where that ends up working well for the ineffable feelings being captured. The situation(s) he sketches out all do seem, somehow, to tie into that powerful central free/freefall shift.

The "nothing" that he's falling out into now reminds me of the darkness out the window of that 747...

Yes! I was thinking that too.

And even my favorite lyric from "Even the Losers" - "two cars parked on the overpass/ rocks hit the water like broken glass" - has you looking down from a height.

Yeah, that free/freefall shift is amazing, there's nothing like it. This song can't really be overplayed for me; every time I hear the "free" turn into "freefallin" I feel like a cartoon character who is running in midair and has just looked down.

In Lynne's favor, Petty's vocals sound amazing, one of his best performances.

xp And it is the same nothing, isn't it? Like, it's essentially the same story. There was a girl, he stopped wanting to be with her, and then he followed this perfectly normal need for freedom out to its logical conclusion, out over the edge of the earth into nothingness. The difference is just that this is a truly great pop song, with that quality of feeling intensely alive no matter how dark the material is.

It's also an existential update of a classic Petty theme - everything good haunted by its dark side, every happy relationship tinted by its inevitable doom. Here the end of the relationship, poses "freedom" that turns out to be, potentially, oblivion.

The instrumental track is the right match, too - just gentle enough, just uplifting enough, that you can choose to push back the darkness, roll the top down and cruise down the highway on the "free" side of things. Lots of space for Petty's echoing but newly plainspoken and super clear voice. The drumming is, as in Traveling Wilburys, a little bit robotic and demo-like, but the few special touches (like the change-up for the last verse) count for a lot.

I can see, in the abstract, that someone could object to those warm pulses of pasted-in Lynne backing vocals, duplicating the rhythm guitar part, but... Nah, they're great!

love that post, LD.

I Won't Back Down

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvlTJrNJ5lA

another one that country songwriters could marvel at. at the economy and supreme catchiness. you could write a hundred songs and never write anything this inevitable.

Mike Campbell playing a perfect imitation Harrison slide part

This isn't a personal favorite but I'm never bummed to hear it come on. tipsy's vintage review (a great artifact - thank you for sharing!) is not wrong about the Bryan Adams qualities of the lightly chugging groove. The generic ground-standing not-backin'-down sentiments also fit with that... we're definitely heading into VH1 territory. But the little push of energy going into the chorus, from the drums, the Lynne (and Harrison?) vox, and then the HEYYYYYYYYYYY really saves things. (Jakob Dylan may have been taking notes.)

I always forget about the mellower "I-won't back-down" vocal part, that's a little less compelling tbh. Don't mind the pretty little synth buried in the mix.

those jeff lynne backing vocals are basically AI before AI. you could say that jeff and george were singing on it but you could put anyone in that video and say it was them. its a completely generic sound. same with ringo's lynne-drums.

Ringo, to be fair, is not actually playing on the record (though I wish he did) - it's Phil Jones, Heartbreakers percussionist, who apparently was brought in at the start of these sessions for "Free Fallin'" and stayed to play on the entire album. No idea why Ringo is drum-syncing to his performance.

god, I forgot Ringo drummed on it.

Tom Petty's response to Sam Smith was A+:

Petty himself shrugged it off, saying in a statement that “I have never had any hard feelings toward Sam” and that “all my years of songwriting have shown me these things can happen. Most times you catch it before it gets out the studio door but in this case it got by.”

i'm confused -- did ringo drum on this or not? also, who is sam and why should tom petty have had hard feelings toward him and what got out the studio door?

lol I was also wondering, scrolling up got me nothing

No, Phil Jones drums -- I posted before the correction.

"Sam" is "Sam Smith." You guys know what happened with "Stay With Me"?

what is "Stay With Me"?

guessing this is like a "you stole my song" issue?

yeah one of the 10 or so most popular songs of the 2010s

Still ubiquitous in the wild too -- like "I Won't Back Down."

i have fond associations with “i won’t back down” and the patriots blowing their undefeated season in the super bowl (tom played halftime, his set was “american girl,” “won’t back down,” “free fallin,” “runnin down a dream”)

yeah one of the 10 or so most popular songs of the 2010s

well this explains why I have no idea what it is and have never heard it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB-5XG-DbAA

1.2 billion views! On the Hot 100, it was halted at #2 by "Rude," but it topped five of the genre charts and was #1 in the UK, Canada, Poland, and elsewhere.

Petty's publishing company settled out of court, giving Lynne and Petty a joint 12.5% songwriting stake.

well this explains why I have no idea what it is and have never heard it

― I painted my teeth (sleeve),

this is like not knowing "I Won't Back Down" itself tbh

#idontevenownatv

stand your ground!

there ain't no easy way out, man

separate thread but I am always baffled by the idea that songs like that are ubiquitous. where in my life would I ever hear them? maybe as distant background noise in a supermarket, at best.

I mistakenly think ILE posters consume media equally.

separate thread but I am always baffled by the idea that songs like that are ubiquitous. where in my life would I ever hear them? maybe as distant background noise in a supermarket, at best.

Yeah, this idea that pop music is inescapable is really weird. As I mentioned on the Sabrina Carpenter thread, not only did I have to actively seek out "Espresso" on YouTube, once I heard it I looked her up and realized she had five previous albums, despite my being totally unaware of her existence until that week.

But how many Cecil Taylor albums does the average Sabrina Carpenter fan own? I know I'm on my own weird path; pop music listeners don't.

I wonder if Carpenter has fans instead of streamers.

I own four Taylor albums btw

maybe i have heard that sam smith song in the past but would undoubtedly have reacted to that oleaginous vocal approach before noticing any similarities to "i won't back down."

I heard some pop song the other day that sounded like such a direct rip off of Marvin Gaye. Was that the Bruno mars one?

i don't think i've ever heard the sam smith song but i do remember the lawsuit. which apparently didn't make me curious enough to go listen to the song. i can't listen to people with voices like that. i don't even know what that voice is trying to do. its demented.

A species of gay dolorousness drives me mad. Smith sounds better on dance tracks where the producers can turn him into another noise:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93ASUImTedo

The similarities are sufficient to understand why Smith had to give writing credit. But I did always wonder how much he had even heard the song. Just guessing it was not nearly as ubiquitous in the UK.

As for the song, it’s sturdy, I’m never mad to hear it, but has never been a favorite.

Same.

In Conversations With... Petty was coy about the "label head" who rejected FMF for not having hits.

The label head was Irving Azoff.

it is absolutely plausible, and furthermore absolutely likely, that a gay briton in his 20s in the 2010s would have never heard "free Fallin" in his entire life, which would hold true for every single individual involved in the production "Stay with me." Which is to say, English people in general do not fuck with Tom Petty, particularly english people born in the last 30 years; although, please english ILXors, set me straight if I am in error and Tom Petty has a strong foothold in daily life in the UK comparable to the U.S.

that damn Jeff Lynne sound. when the Beatles anthology new songs came out, even 11 year old me was like “no, no, not Jeff Lynne, stay away!”