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

That big G to C riff is so annoying

Listening for the first time. This seems about as decent as Kings Highway... which did pop into my head unbidden today, so I guess it has more hook to it than I'd given it credit for. With this one, I'll say that the generally ploddiness is off-putting, but the "the sky was the limit" and the little guitar thing after that are pretty nice. The A&R man might not hear a single, but I'm not hearing "I'm done with this artist" at all.

This would have been a good candidate for that Varispeed tape manipulation we were talking about a while back. Wake up, guys! Also: the awkward emphasis of "finished high SCHOOL" is a tough way to start. If you're gonna do that, lean into the Dylan of it.

Kings Highway sucks!

the lyrics don't cohere for me and the jokes (bart?) fall flat, but the stately beatlesque chords chug along nicely and it's well played, so...i wouldn't turn it off if it came on the radio.

Kings Highway sucks!

― calstars, Friday, June 28, 2024 11:13 PM

why?

Two Gunslingers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x8dIyRTKHo

One of his best story songs: the gentle Lynneisms suit material about aging warriors tired to death of fighting (a song for our times). I like the descending melody in the "Now, right now, oh yeah" section.

The Dark Of The Sun

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr_LGFe7XeU

this sounds like something he wrote for someone else.

van morrison? mark knopfler? just sounds like someone else's song.

yeah van morrison? jackson browne?

Pete Shelley? Grace Jones?

This is what you'd call a Nice Song. In the Zollo book Petty expressed an interest in performing it live.

It's OK, not really much of a chorus.

Speaking of songs written for/with other people, I nominate his Roger McGuinn duet "King of the Hill" for consideration as a sort of bonus track to this album. It came out earlier the same year, and I like it better than anything on this record.

Yeah "80s Van Morrison" was my immediate thought, especially towards the end when we get the "hey yeah yeah!" bits and the "nuuuaaaaarrrh." I can hear the Knopfler too. The solo is once again the best part. Title reminds me too much of "Dogs on the Run," which doesn't flatter this song.

I feel like a broken record, but that steady, steady lifeless 4/4 drum beat is really stifliny all these songs. They're not like, deeply flawed compositions, but none of them sound like anybody urgently needed to write or perform them. If the band could sound a little more "live" or free to make decisions I don't think I'd notice that as much. We're getting dangerously close to karaoke band territory imo.

*stifling

All Or Nothin'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-lJXljp1YM

also doesn't really sound like a tom petty song! maybe he wrote it for Sir. George.

I like the bridge. A bit of a throwaway, though. I prefer this album's second side.

i'm getting the impression that this album is very underwhelming for most people here. you were the only person to even comment on that gunslingers song, alfred.

i still think if i listened to this whole album in one sitting i would enjoy the experience more. i never really thought this before, but TP really does think of creating an LP experience. the vibe. its not just some singles and some solid deep cuts and some filler. i mean, it is...but the whole is bigger when heard as a whole. if that makes sense. this is especially true of the albums later on. just my opinion. i think we can all agree that he had his share of throwaways.

Well, it's also a holiday week and I hear politics got spicy too.

Oh yeah I forgot all about about this one, it rules, imo!

hey I like Two Gunslingers! especially the fast "I don't wanna fight no more" bit

i'm getting the impression that this album is very underwhelming for most people here.

Yeah, I've been refraining from comment because I don't like any of these songs. They all sound like alternate takes of each other and they all suck. Jeff Lynne is a goddamn aesthetic war criminal. But because I like Petty generally, I'm just waiting to get to discussion of Wildflowers. (I know we have to talk about "Mary Jane's Last Dance," from the greatest hits album, but I don't really like that one either.)

One of my favorite Petty songs is coming up on the second half of this one.

i wonder what Petty with Nile Rodgers would have sounded like. or Bill Laswell! maybe they would have made him sound like a Mick Jagger solo album though.

Dave Stewart and Jeff Lynne were not the most exciting people he could have ended up with but he probably just liked them. got along with them. it happens.

A reminder that Lynch and Tench were not happy recording ITGWO.

i wonder what Petty with Nile Rodgers would have sounded like. or Bill Laswell! maybe they would have made him sound like a Mick Jagger solo album though.

He should have worked with Pete Anderson (the guy who produced all of Dwight Yoakam's early albums).

they probably got treated like session people. jeff lynne is only really going to care about TP's opinion on anything. he's used to being in bands with 50 members who had no say. probably. i just made that up. then again i don't know the name of anyone else in ELO so it sounds right.

x-post

agreed that every single one of these albums has played better for me at the end when I put it on as a whole. maybe goes back to my thinking of them as a great bar band who got greater - at heart, you kinda wanna be there for the set and the overall vibe they create.

i don't know the name of anyone else in ELO so it sounds right.

poor Bev Bevan

yeah also that violin guy. mik kaminski.

i couldn't think of anything to say about two gunslingers. the pacifist vibe seems so...quaint. i'd say ok boomer if i weren't a boomer myself. sort of.

oh right bev!

that one disco-y track from southern accents makes me feel ok that he never worked with nile tbh

You Want it All has a little more oomph to it than most of these tracks. It's not just the crunchier guitars... the piled-up sound towards the end is really nice. The handling of "aa-aaa-aaa-aa-aall" is the most I've liked Lynne's production on this whole album.

All The Wrong Reasons

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x7osTT2b7g

An attempt to rewrite "Free Fallin'"?

I admire how the melody zigzags and the bouzouki.

"all or nothin'" -- nice ominous chords that i wouldn't have thought were in his vocabulary. was there a co-write on this?

"all the wrong reasons" -- yeah comparisons to "free fallin" are inevitable -- same tempo, similar melody in the verse, same ringing open chords. this one doesn't have its reach but there are some nice individual lines like that horizon/sky one.

He co-wrote "All or Nothin'" with Lynne and Campbell.

Too Good To Be True

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek2_lOix9zI

Petty described this one as "modal" or something. I like the way it presses its points and groove. Campbell's squiggles help.

interesting melody over the verse. the campbell squiggles are ok, but just for once if there were a solid, say, buck dharma lead in there it would really take off.

Well, there's that Harrison-esque solo after the second chorus.

yeah that's pretty nice.

This is still a very bad album, but that's almost a good song. If he'd re-recorded it around the time of Mojo it could have had more bite, but it's OK.

I must say, listening to this album with y'all as a filter has warped my POV. I've long classified it as second-tier Petty but still in my top five. How you respond in toto depends on whether complacency = death.

"listening to this album with y'all as a filter has warped my POV."

Prolonged exposure to Unperson will do that to a person. Haha!!

I do what I can.

Out In The Cold

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19Z06genVX8