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

last classic rock song? Probably some of that early '90s Clapton. Maybe Layla unplugged. the sound of three million people nodding off on the couch, after dinner.

the sonic depth and scope of these songs, and the lyrics feeling a lot more immediately lived in, hit pretty hard.

Sonically it definitely stood out — not a particular Lynne fan myself as noted above, but it had a warmth and intimacy to it that was quite different from the peak '80s Mutt Lange powerhouse sound we were still immersed in. (Which I love fwiw for its own sake.) The album I think it's probably most in line with in a lot of ways is Tunnel of Love — also a solo album by a band leader, also with warm acoustic strumming, also stripped of previous big-boom bombast. Also full of self-doubt and looming middle age.

As for "last classic rock song," you can draw that line a lot of ways but on a visit to my hometown recently I checked out the rock station I used to listen to in high school and the most recent song that I noticed was "Black Hole Sun."

to me, clapton unplugged feels more like nostalgia for that era (“layla” did come out in 1970 after all) than anything “of” the era

anything post nevermind feels ineligible

not to derail further but grunge and everything after does not feel like part of the same era at all

It wasn't part of the same era, but also it was a sort of return to the era right? A selling point of grunge was that finally we're getting back to long-haired guitar heroes after the synthpop '80s. So even though we all have associations that make us draw a line between Soundgarden and Zeppelin, "Black Hole Sun" sounds right at home in a classic rock setting.

Idk Layla is both a throwback bit of nostalgia but also sort of the last gasp

Audioslave's "Like a Stone" is the last classic rock song.

It wasn't part of the same era, but also it was a sort of return to the era right? A selling point of grunge was that finally we're getting back to long-haired guitar heroes after the synthpop '80s. So even though we all have associations that make us draw a line between Soundgarden and Zeppelin, "Black Hole Sun" sounds right at home in a classic rock setting.

Completely disagree. The willingness of classic rock radio programmers to assimilate a few grunge and post-grunge songs into their format isn't about Soundgarden sounding like Led Zeppelin (they didn't, at all); it was about them needing to maintain/reassert AOR's relevance after almost losing their grip — remember that hair metal was not accepted into the pantheon; you'll never hear Poison or Ratt or even Bon Jovi on classic rock radio, except for one NY station that used to play "Runaway" a lot when I was a kid. Classic rock radio programmers grabbing Pearl Jam and Soundgarden and Nirvana is them saying, "Yeah, this is our thing too, because we still matter, goddammit!"

as far as classic rock goes, TP still hadn't recorded "into the great wide open" or "learning to fly". maybe those are his last classic rock songs.

you'll never hear Poison or Ratt or even Bon Jovi on classic rock radio

erm I heard all of those on the same station where I heard Black Hole Sun. Maybe WCMF is a classic rock outlier idk, but viewed from the current distance without the sense of grunge as this big game-changer, it isn't at all illogical to basically draw a line of guitar rock from say 1969 to 1996ish.

unperson is wrong on Bon Jovi, et al., those absolutely do get played now on CR stations... but right overall. voodoo chili was talking about the core of the Classic Rock format that came out of AOR, and specifically disincluded the later updating of playlists to bring in more 'modern' songs.

we've definitely explored this on other threads, but a key thing to bear in mind is that the addition of Bon Jovi, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, etc., happened wayyyyy later. Like, circa 2010-ish, maybe in an effort to keep up with "Dave FM" type stations. It was definitely something that stood out when it started happening --- for 20+ years those playlists had all stopped around 1990, the classic rock canon was locked. They didn't even fold in new songs by the old artists, except maybe some token airplay when they first dropped (with unplugged Layla being the very rare exception).

With all this in mind, I do think "Mary Jane's Last Dance" is actually the right pick for this slot. Feels good thematically too - "this rock block weekend, we're bringing you everything from Aerosmith to Zeppelin --- one more time to kill the pain."

The last time I was a serious radio listener was in the 80s, junior high and high school, and there were two NYC-area stations I listened to - one was absolutely "classic rock," which basically meant white rock bands from 1969-78. Zeppelin, Stones, Who...I don't even remember them playing that much Beatles. The other was "rock," too, but broader - I used to hear REM's "Superman" and "Can't Get There From Here" alongside Petty, the Cars, and Zep/Stones/Who, and there was one DJ who would occasionally scream "Ramones attack!" and play, like, five Ramones songs in a row.

Sure, but I mean that that era is NOW safely folded in. And it makes sense! Much more through-line than disruption from ‘70s dude-led guitar rock to ‘90s dude-led guitar rock. And it’s pretty specific to the big early ‘90s bands, afaik classic rock stations never added Hole or even Smashing Pumpkins, nothing too “alt-rock.”

Which is to say, "classic rock" is a mutable construct, so if you wanted to identify the last classic rock song you'd need to set some parameters around it. Is it "only boomers"? People who released their first album before 1980, or 1985? There's certainly a know-it-when-you-hear-it dimension to it, but it's not really that easy to define.

Anyway, Tom Petty obviously qualifies no matter how you frame it.

Unperson,

Here's the 1987 Top 1027 of All Time Listener Poll from that "broader" rock station -- WNEW:

The 1987 WNEW-FM Top 1027 Songs of All Time Listener's Poll

Pre-Wilburys and Full Moon Fever, there's 8 Petty tracks on the list:

-- #232 - REFUGEE
-- #321 - BREAKDOWN
-- #358 - AMERICAN GIRL
-- #385 - THE WAITING
-- #458 - HERE COMES MY GIRL
-- #559 - DON'T DO ME LIKE THAT
-- #859 - EVEN THE LOSERS
-- #881 - LISTEN TO HER HEART

feels like Lynne auditioning to produce Bob's next album

BOB DYLAN:
I don’t compromise and I don’t pretend
I don’t even care if I ever see her again
Most of the time

TWENTY HARMONIZING JEFF LYNNES:
Most of the TIIIIIIIME

Wow you guys are still doing this

local classic rock station played Whitesnake into Pearl Jam the other day

Here I go again, picking on the boy

I have listened to Face in the Crowd like 5 times a day since it came up here. Feels like it could have been on Tunnel of Love but at the same time I can hear a killer Leonard cohen version. The opening verse is so foreboding, like it creates an openness that is frightening but so simple that it feels almost inevitable.

Feel A Whole Lot Better

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZxHLkA5EcU

respectable.

We needed an interval after this killer run.

same key, same tempo as the byrds classic. suffers only from "every hair in its place" perfectionism.

the gap between "i'll feel a whole lot better" and full moon fever: 24 years
the gap between full moon fever and now: 35 years

Fine version of a great song. Does this make the Byrds the only artist he covered twice, at least as far as released recordings goes? (Reminds me, we didn't do the live album — maybe should have at least hit on "So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star.")

and "Needles and Pins," an actual top 40 single.

i did mention at the appropriate time that people should feel free to post anything from the live album that they wanted to post or talk about. but nobody took me up on it. and we moved on. like thieves in the hollywood night.

listening to this it struck me that TP actually sounded a little LESS like roger mcguinn on it than he does on some of his own songs.

also i feel like a shout-out to songwriter Gene Clark is in order. always say hi to gene when the opportunity arises.

hell yeah

Clark is the best rock songwriter most people have never heard of

i did mention at the appropriate time that people should feel free to post anything from the live album that they wanted to post or talk about.

oops, missed that. But as we're on a Byrds cover, I'll just drag the other one in here. Got a fair amount of rock radio airplay at the time. (The band's 32nd-most-played song in concert, at least per setlist.) As with this one, I don't think they improve on the original, but they do show an unsurprising affinity for it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5q3dXiQJukM

God, that sounds great despite the trumpet. Stan and Howie were such necessary improvisers.

*harmonists, sorry

gene clark is the best but so so sad lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJ0KRApU-pI

Ai yi, was just reading that the royalty infusion from Petty's cover sent Clark on a relapse binge that more or less continued til his death a few years later. Feel a whole lot better indeed.

ha, i remember reading some blog post a while ago that was like "TOM PETTY KILLED GENE CLARK", which felt a little over the top.

Clark was 46 when he died, wow. I remember it and it felt (was) pretty old to me at the time. sad lol, R.I.P.

Did not realize this was a cover on my previous handful of listens to this album - just figured it was a tribute, or an attempt to rewrite "Needles and Pins," lol. It's pleasant, certainly not essential. Gives me that vibe of rounding out the album with something that everybody knows how to play and can enjoy running through --- a reminder that they didn't necessarily set out to craft a blockbuster comeback album.

Yer So Bad

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

i still hear this on the radio. i never remember the actual title when i hear it. despite that chorus. i just forget about it as a Petty hit until i hear it. which isn't often but they do still play it. probably at Walgreens.

The opening couplet gets down to business.

this is maybe my favorite tom petty song. i learned it on guitar around the time my daughter was born and would sing it to her so it took on some greater meaning. the pre-chorus/chorus combo is one of the best ever

Like when that E minor kicks off the pre chorus it feels like the most emo thing petty ever wrote

A good old fashioned fist pumper

nice song. it sort of weirds me out when tom tries to be funny. there's a lightness to it, with those hawaiian guitars and that dum-de-dum drumbeat, but there are also a bunch of minor chords and the humorous tone of the vocals isn't sustained throughout. so it's in this weird funny-not-funny zone. i like his "OI!" before the guitar solo.

He shouldn't try to be clever unless Dylan is in the room to rein him in.

He does just fine here.