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

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

i always forget about this song even though you can still hear it on the radio. i dig it. for the guitars. reminds me of "twilight zone" by golden earring.

yeah, this was an airplay single and a considerable hit: #1 on album rock radio that summer. Petty says that for a looooong time he hated this song and hated playing it. I can hear why: Lynne's production keeps it too tightly reined? The live versions are way looser. The main riff rules.

it does sound like "twilight zone," even down to the voiceovers. i like his flirtation with riff rock. an underexplored direction.

Wow, where the hell did that come from? I'd say they must have locked Lynne out of the studio for an hour, but you can still hear the chiming acoustic guitars buried in there. That song belongs on a better album.

Yeah this is a good one.

You And I Will Meet Again

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MVZ1en8evE

I know I'm alone with this one, but "You and I Will Meet Again" is one of my favorite Petty songs -- it moves me! The harmonies, the verse about the red-wing hawk circling (reminds me of Robert Penn Warren), the ascending melody Tench plays on his organ in the outro...

this is really nice -- byrds feel, with an almost "meet on the ledge" depth.

Oops, I've gotten terribly behind! These last four are all at least passable album tracks, though "All the Wrong Reasons" really has no reason to exist. Agreed that the moments when the guitar gets to shine on "Too Good to be True" are highlights.

"Out in the Cold" is sort of best-case scenario for the band finding a midpoint between their classic sound and Lynne's. His fingerprints are all over it, but he's not keeping them from doing *anything* interesting. And it's just got good solid new-wave rocker bones.

"You and I Will Meet Again" is also going over well with me. The recurring spidery guitar/drum figure is a great little background hook. And the big buildup after 2:30 or so is really satisfying! I wish it hit one big finish instead of fading out, but it's great stuff. This album might be rallying on Side B after all!

The organ is the best part of "You and I..." but it's a pretty good song overall. This album is really front-loaded with suck, but it's definitely improving.

told y'all to stick with the second side!

Makin' Some Noise

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsbZTStV2kQ

solid filler action! don't think I have ever heard this one.

The guitars snarl!

gettin' his steve tyler on.

Sounds like the Black Keys. This would be a good candidate for the "fiction vs non-fiction music" thread.

Fun rave-up, not much to it but he sells it. Snarling guitars definitely help.

Also, I missed "You and I Will Meet Again," but I like that one. I had to check the credits to see if McGuinn was on backing vox (nope, he's on "All the Wrong Reasons"), because this sounds like a latter-day McGuinn tune to me.

lol maybe it's cause I just caught the video for "Chattahoochee" but I'm getting a lot of New Country here. bolted on to a super solid, propulsive New Wave chassis. this sounds good! very hooky, even if Petty's chorus itself isn't really much of a hook. love that squiggly skronky solo!

Built To Last

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjJtzjVz8UE

Now, here's where the Petty-Lynne collaboration create something innaresting. I like Lynne's chorus harmonies. Another shimmer of a Campbell solo.

Agreed about those harmonies! This is lovely. Lush. The particular version of retro here almost makes me think of much later indie stuff like, idk, Mirage or Friends or Caroline Rose. But it's more like if An Innocent Man had more rock-band DNA. It's a good fit for them, and they fill it out with some really nice surprises along the way. Good songwriting too.

The rhythm section is still ludicrously locked in place, but maybe Lynch was at least glad to have a break from just going Boom-chunk, Boom-chunk in 4/4 for three straight minutes.

Overall, yeah, I feel like this album rallied big time. I'll give it another listen tho and see how it hangs together as a piece.

that slide (or pedal steel?) action here is real sweet

and wah-wah pedal, no?

I haven't changed my mind about Into the Great Wide Open. A fine album. I don't need "The Dark of the Sun," "All or Nothin'," or the title track.

now that we're done with into the great wide open, it is safe to post the dog who looks like jeff lynne

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EwFcM8bXEAEOUWg?format=png&name=small

excellent content tyvm

nice song but i don't love his funny-not-funny voice. he should have sung it straight. roy orbison would have done a nice job with this. or chris isaac.

I've always assumed the "Stand By Me" echoes here are intentional, yes? Especially since it had just gone top 10 again a few years earlier. It's a nice song. Still not too much of a chorus, I feel like there aren't a whole lot of real hooky songs on the album overall.

Anyway, as mentioned above, here's the McGuinn-Petty song from earlier the same year. I like this one. I think all the Heartbreakers except Epstein are on it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iupUmLy7NoE

The Bogdanovnich doc has an embarrassing scene where Tom Petty scolds McGuinn and a hotshot young producer for accepting a song Petty thinks is garbage and beneath McGuinn.

Ha. That McGuinn album does have some clunkers. It's not bad tho.

I like his version of this EC song better than EC's.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTWb8aQ6yzM

My dad loves that McGuinn album, it does have some incredible stuff. “If we ever meet again”

Yeah, this album definitely works better as a whole. When you know the last few tracks are going to loosen up and rock out, then "Learning to Fly" and "Kings Highway" play like a classic one-two-punch. It's solid mid-career work, not essential but mostly enjoyable and in good spirits.

Alfred, I'd agree with your cuts, but spare "Dark of the Sun" and drop "Two Gunslingers."

Am I mistaken or did "King of the Hill" get MTV play in 1991?

Yeah, I remember seeing it.