YOU RANK ME BABY, YEAH YOU RATE ME 1-2 - ILM Artist Poll #71 - Tom Petty (results)

Petty
...so I finally wrote her this song called "Insider" and I brought it down and Jimmy [Iovine] just flipped over the song... He asked for a song. He was going to produce [Bella Donna]. He wanted one desperately. I remember bringing it to him, and he said, "God, when I asked for a song I didn't expect this!" And I was really attached to it. And it really hurt me when I did the track and the vocals. And I said, [softly], "Stevie, I can't give you this." And she said, "Well, I can relate to that. I completely understand. I'll take something else..."

xp

Now now, this doesn't have to be the big get even.

why does it have to be one? Stevie & Tom together are just amazing; Stop Draggin' My Heart Around & Insider make me wish they had a whole album.
plus the chorus on Stop Draggin is unreal.

hear hear. I'd love for them to cut a record together ~now~

http://i.imgur.com/nyMQWOM.jpg

27. Runaway Trains - 135 points (7 votes)
http://youtu.be/TOTkw5om5QY

last year Stevie released an album of decades-old unreleased material, and it included a Petty co-write:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg0K9uH-zpc

and another written w/ Mike Campbell:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m57tHMuK7Bw

she and Campbell co-wrote this fine late period tune:

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

well I see my vote stuffing efforts (#5) didn't go so far. My favorite Petty deep cut.
It seems like this is the song that Adam Granduciel hears in his head.

i'm a huge stan for runaway trains. very much a campbell track (ben and stan were both not thrilled with how little room campbell's demo gave them to breathe) and very much petty not missing out on another "boys of summer" but even so...

the little Very Mike Campbell licks at 3:45-3:55 are just crushingly good. great vocal performance too.

http://i.imgur.com/A8J9Qku.jpg

26 (TIE). Southern Accents - 138 points (6 votes)
http://youtu.be/qTi6x_ADjqs

Pretty tune, but so hokey. I liked it more before I actually moved to the South.

"You don't know how it feels".. Love it, voted for it. It's strengthened in the album context. Thought petty was a badass (I was 12) for explicitly mentioning pot. It's a great "walking into a crowded bar feeling cool" song, ime

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSJqe1h8qAQ

the hokeyness of southern accents works better for me than the last verse of rebels. and i really dig the trick he plays with the bridge and final verse, going in medias res for the middle eight, then backing out to set the scene after the fact.

also i kinda love that pic. byrds fetish in full effect even in mudcrutch days!

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/bb/NotoriousByrdBrothers.jpg/440px-NotoriousByrdBrothers.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/vc80GQq.jpg

26 (TIE). Mary Jane's Last Dance - 138 points (7 votes)
http://youtu.be/aowSGxim_O8

Oh my my, oh hell yes

I wonder how much of his longevity can be attributed to Petty's enthusiastic embrace of videos as a format, his career fortunes track pretty closely to the rise and fall of video culture

Like it more now than I did then.

I wonder how much of his longevity can be attributed to Petty's enthusiastic embrace of videos as a format, his career fortunes track pretty closely to the rise and fall of video culture

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 15 December 2015 00:15 (4 minutes ago) Permalink

Also his willingness to be a low-key, amused weirdo in his videos instead of an aging guy doing rock star moves.

yeah they're all very narrative-driven, with him as the narrator but not necessarily the "star"

for a tossed-off track thrown onto a greatest hits collection, "last dance" has proven to be astonishingly durable. a lot of guitar players have driven themselves nuts chasing that tone (probably AC30 but not documented afaik)

does anyone else hear it as an older, wearier "american girl"?

Re: music videos, it's really amazing how petty navigated multiple decades, managing to be both "classic rock" and "new wave" (as confusing as that term was in the late 70s), kinda fusing it almost

I assumed that everyone loved it, and that it would cruise into the top ten.

i loved "Mary Jane's Last Dance" at the time, it definitely helped motivate me to by the Greatest Hits CD, but it just barely made it onto the tail end of my ballot. it amused me that another Rick Rubin-produced hit (RHCP's "Dani California") was widely thought to be distractingly similar to "Last Dance" but Rubin is so famously hands-off about the actual songwriting that nobody even bothered to fault him for it.

http://www.tbs.com/videos/cougar-town/season-6/episode-13/mary-janes-last-dance.html

http://i.imgur.com/dCMnivd.jpg

25. Learning to Fly - 143 points (8 votes)
http://youtu.be/s5BJXwNeKsQ

xpost Looks like consensus is Tele/Nocaster (Campbell's guitar) played by Petty through an AC30.

happy that "Learning To Fly" showed up, i was starting to worry it wouldn't after several other '90s singles already placed. i swear that like 30 different country hits in the past decade have the same chords as "Learning," so many Petty vibes on country radio.

http://www.tbs.com/videos/cougar-town/season-5/episode-6/learning-to-fly.html

those into the great wide open singles are so slow

For some reason I think Lana Del Rey could do a good "MJLD" cover.

In Shakey, McDonough says that "YDKHIF" is the "Great Ersatz [Neil Young] record. It is like everything you wished Young's later laid-back stuff would be like.

I didn't vote for either. Both good though.

for all the talk of Lynnenification on those early '90s albums "Learning to Fly" sure sounds a lot like an Eagles tune.

The Eagles would never have that great of a drum break.

it amuses me that "Learn[ing] To Fly" is the title of one of the most innocuous radio staples by Tom Petty, Pink Floyd, AND Foo Fighters.

Dave Grohl said at the time that his "Learn..." song was an attempt to write a Petty-style Rockin' Pop track.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYhYOdsqK5Y

I've always wondered if Paul Westerberg was amused or annoyed by the blatant thievery of the "rebel without a clue" line.

Oh wait, that's on Into the Great Wide Open, isn't it? I always confuse those two songs -- same laid-back midtempo vibe.

that's "into the great wide open" and it's one of the reasons I don't love it

"learning to fly" has grown on me a lot though. apparently my allergy to that shiny acoustic rhythm track has eased up.

Going from "rebel without a cause" to "rebel without a clue" isn't much of a clever leap or anything. If Westerberg was the first to ever do it I'd be surprised.

Apparently Jim Steinman did it first, though I doubt Westerberg stole it from him. Right, not hard to come up with. But Petty was touring with the Replacements when that was their quasi-hit, there's no way he didn't pick it up from them. Not that it matters much, it was just a little weird.

From an AV Club Westerberg interview: I'd steal something back from him, if I could find something I liked.

quality zing but also LIES

For some reason, I really hate that descending 3-chord progression during the 'rebel without a clue' part. I blame smash mouth.

Paul knows he stole it from somewhere too.

"Learning to Fly" may be my absolute least favorite of Petty's hits. Something about it just feels so lazy to me, and not in the good way.

Thematically and musically, it feels like the rebound of "Free Fallin'."

there's a song on ITGWO called "All the Wrong Reasons" that's closer to a "Free Fallin'" retread.

xp It seems like it takes all the worst elements of that and "I Won't Back Down" and combines them in the least effective ways. I know when he worked with Lynne the whole idea was to work in a different, more spontaneous way and not overthink everything, but LTF just doesn't work for me. (Actually the whole ITGWO album is my least favorite.)

https://i.imgur.com/GyhNrKG.jpg

24. Wildflowers - 155 points (9 votes)
http://youtu.be/AldoDm2bV04