THE RATING IS THE HARDEST PART: Tom Petty HARD PROMISES POLL

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This has richer, more varied album tracks than any Petty album until Into the Great Wide Open (on which he, admittedly, sings a lot better). I went with the proto-Nirvana "A Woman in Love" over "Insider" and "Something Big."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXsVU6-_GFo

"That was a song that took a long time to write. Roger McGuinn swears he told me the line - about the waiting being the hardest part - but I think I got the idea from something Janis Joplin said on television. I had the chorus very quickly, but I had a very difficult time piecing together the rest of the song. It's about waiting for your dreams and not knowing if they will come true. I've always felt it was an optimistic song."

Tom Petty was fighting again with MCA records which delayed the release of the album Hard Promises... After the success of Damn the Torpedoes... MCA wanted to charge a star artist price of $9.98 and Tom Petty demanded that the album sell at the normal price of $8.98... This caused a standoff which Tom Petty won when he threatened to name the album $8.98... So Tom Petty went into battle for you and saved you One Dollar if you purchased this album back in 1981... The Price of the album is now around 15 dollars at walmart... But I don't know if Tom Petty can do anything about that...
- Brian, Grand Forks, ND

luvvvv You Can Still Change Your Mind ... Maybe my fave Petty ballad.

Definitely a three-horse race, though I suspect consensus would settle on a different third horse than Alfred's. Probably moot, the lurkers light on Fortinbras, etc etc.

It might not be the one I vote for, but "The Waiting" is probably the finest love letter from the road that classic rock has to offer, precisely because (unlike e.g. "Faithfully" or "Patience") it makes no bones about what it's getting up to in the meantime.

I'm having trouble articulating what's so great about "Insider"... it's flawed in several ways, but the vocal performance sells the thing so well you not only don't care but feel like an ass for even noticing. And anyway the line that gives the record its name is so true the verses barely matter.

"A Woman In Love," that just hits like a hammer. Some of Campbell's best work imo and that's saying something.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB2eZJnv7hM

those are my 3 biggies, yeah. tho i've also got a thing about "a thing about you."

Duck Dunn on bass on "A Woman in Love" btw.

"A Woman In Love," that just hits like a hammer. Some of Campbell's best work imo and that's saying something.

^^^^

"The Waiting" has some of my favorite drum parts anywhere. Stan Lynch = underrated.

And, wow, his drumming on "A Woman in Love."

stan lynch is great. the whole heartbreakers band is just so loose and right-on at the same time. they always probably gave him more swing than he earned, but he also gave them a lot of room to work.

stan lynch is the master of the stutter-step fill, that dut-dut/duh-duh-dut-dut-DUT thing he does so you get the sense of sort falling down the stairs into the verse or chorus or wherever he's going.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nq7MQ6nosYY

is it weird that that version makes me hear the buddy holly in the lyrics more than the original?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0OYQm0pNI8

funny what eddie vedder says there about girls loving tom petty. definitely true in my experience, chicks dig him. at least among my gen-x cohort. (i expect "girls" now think he's old and craggy, as they should.)

"the waiting" is the first petty song i ever heard, or at least the first i remember. it was at the beginning of 7th grade, fall of '81. i have this memory of hearing it in the cafeteria, on a kid's boombox. i was only in that school for a few months and i knew we were moving soon. so the song kind of resonated with me, like something big was going to happen soon (a new school, puberty, it was all looming up).

true confession: i think i paid full boat for the dvd that's pulled from :o

you could feel less about that by sending me a rip of it...

and you're otm, "thing about you" is one of his purest holly rips/riffs. and maybe the phonetic singing makes it more obvious. (i also like how her ramones t-shirt and the hypertempo make it clearer why tom p. got sometimes lumped in as a new waver.)

A good Rolling Stone interview from the same time too (not available online, alas).

Love every tune on this album, but "The Waiting" has been such an omnipresent song in my music listening life that I almost can't not vote for it, you know? And it's just such a tight track, that even if you've heard it a million times reveals another little detail every time you hear it. (Esp. always loved the way Ron Blair echoes the guitar riff on the bass coming out of the breakdown in the middle.) Plus, no matter where you go, if you play this song, a room full of people will yell back the "hey yeahs!" before the chorus.

BTW, <3 Steve Ferrone but he's no Stan Lynch.

anybody know what record store he's in on the cover? i assume somewhere in l.a.

In the documentary, Mike Campbell still looks peeved that "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" stole the airplay from "A Woman in Love."

if i'd played that descending lead riff on "woman in love" i'd be peeved too. (that's the song i ended up voting for, btw. i think it's the one off the album i've gone back to individually the most.)

(tho campbell has writing credits on both, so he got paid either way.)

Always liked that $8.98 anecdote

"funny what eddie vedder says there about girls loving tom petty. definitely true in my experience, chicks dig him"

My sister was/ still is a big Tom Petty fan and I started to listen to his albums thanks to her.
For some reason she found him extremely attractive (!).

anybody know what record store he's in on the cover? i assume somewhere in l.a.
I dunno, but I always wanted to find out. It probably doesn't exist anymore! But I love that cover -- Petty's never had very good album covers, but that one is sweet.

The Waiting is the best song here, but it's going to get plenty of votes. So I'll go for one of his more underappreciated rockers, A Thing About You.

Letting You Go is another good one.

For some reason she found him extremely attractive (!).

i remember in college my girlfriend and her roommate explaining to me the ugly-sexy appeal of tom petty.

Yuck.

I'm guessing mine will be the only vote for "Nightwatchman".

probably. but i do remember doing a little illustrated booklet for "nightwatchman" as part of a middle-school art class or something like that.

(i also like "something big," the noir fatalism of it. one of his most l.a. songs -- along with "free fallin'" obviously, and i guess "century city" tho that mostly just riffs off the name.)

"Something Big" is one of Dylan's favorite Petty songs, according to Petty and Paul Zollo.

yeah i can totally see dylan digging it.

phrasing on "that overlooked the marquee/of the Plaza All-Adult" is A++++

"Nightwatchman" has a such a tossed-off vibe in the midst of all those anthemic rockers/ballads that I can really appreciate.

(Somehow, I can also visualize (auralize?) it on 'Tattoo You' - say, after "Black Limousine".)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

wait I thought I voted for Insider!

SHE'S A WOO-MAN IN LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE

He did that song in his Bonnaroo set, and the crowd went notably dead. They didn't know it. Kids these days etc.

Man, the live version of "Kings Road" that's in the Cameron Crowe doc is so fucking good