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

are we talking about the very very end, like the last 10 seconds? that seems like such a generic song ending to me but what do I know

we are, and it is, but it's also on the nose and Costello's on the record

http://i.imgur.com/A2shVmG.jpg

11. Don't Come Around Here No More – 233 points (9 votes, one #1)
http://youtu.be/h0JvF9vpqx8

Always thought "Angels Want to Wear My Red Shoes" was a closer Byrds-y comparison.

i am very surprised to see "Don't Come Around Here No More" place so high, but not at all disappointed. My #6 and my favorite story in the ongoing saga of songs traded back and forth between Tom Petty and Stevie Nicks...

So Jimmy Iovine asks Tom for material for a new Stevie Nicks record, and Tom says he doesn't have anything but they should call the guy who wrote "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)." Which is how Dave Stewart eventually ends up calling Petty in the middle of the night to come down to the studio and help get a track unstuck lyrically…

Stevie
I was writing madly. I had my little book, and I was just writing, writing, writing. Tom, Jimmy, and Dave were sort of talking. But it was five in the morning, and I was really tired. So I said, "I'm going to go. I'm leaving you guys, and I'll be back tomorrow." I left, and when I got back the next day, at something like three p.m., the whole song was written. And not only was it written, it was spectacular. Dave was standing there saying to me, "Well, there it is! It's really, really good."

And they go to me, "Well, it's terrific, and now you can go out and… and you can sing it." Tom had done a great vocal, a great vocal. I just looked at them and said, "I'm going to top that? Really?" I got up, thanked Dave, thanked Tom, fired Jimmy, and left. That went down in about five minutes.

another version:

On The Howard Stern Show, Dave Stewart explained that the title's phrase was actually uttered by Nicks. She had broken up with Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh the night before,[2] and invited Stewart to her place for a party after an early Eurythmics show in Los Angeles. Stewart did not know who she was at the time, but went anyway. When the partygoers all disappeared to a bathroom for a couple of hours to snort cocaine, he decided to go upstairs to bed. He woke up at 5am to find Nicks in his room trying on Victorian clothing and described the entire scenario as very much reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland. Later that morning, she told Walsh, "Don't come around here no more."

I've said this already: I can understand the novelty of the record in 1985 but it's another chapter in Petty's long history of mewled, ugly vocals (YOU TAAANGLE MAAAH EMOSHEEONNNSS)

Also: David Stewart did better with neo-psychedelia with Daryl Hall's 1986 "Dreamtime." Imagine if Hall had sung "Don't Come Around Here..."

I bet Tom would have made a nice Dreamtime!

imho the song only gets better as the years go by and the novelty wears off. petty's vocal doesn't bother me, drum track, wah-wah solo, and backing vox just tremendous.

i can understand why the band didn't like it, but if the Stewart/Petty collab had just stopped there I would have been first in line to demand more. who knew "more" would turn out to be "it ain't nothin' to me" :(

and "Make It Better"

Those old enough to remember: was this song a shock in early '85?

tbh "Runaway Trains" felt like more of a gobsmack

didn't vote for it because i trusted the electorate to do the right thing (and just outside the top 10 seems perfect to me) but i like it -- especially the "tangle my emotions" delivery! it goes with "Breakdown" as one of those songs where the unusual texture of Petty's voice and singing style work in favor of the sneering attitude of the lyric.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flgG1X05BZw

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

10. Breakdown – 241 points (8 votes, one #1)
Original (fan video): http://youtu.be/pOwlYZ_P7Sg
Live, 1978: http://youtu.be/G1cm0QJ9MSo
Live, 1985: http://youtu.be.com/qNxfPAF1frM

i spoke it into existence! thought that would've been a little higher, though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZvLmqjGB2w

Those old enough to remember: was this song a shock in early '85?

The video was on heavy heavy rotation, and obviously it's a creepy video, though not nearly as creepy (literally) as Owner of a Lonely Heart which was also a hit around the same time.

I seem to remember a lot of people hated Southern Accents, it was tagged as an ambitious miss.

would like to jump in to defend Don't Come Around Here No More. I share some of the ambivalence (actually I think Southern Accents is an unmitigated disaster). But after hearing one of the live versions with the extended Campbell guitar freakout intro brought me back around on this song. My #7.

i dunno 5 really good songs seems kinda mitigating

RECAP
40. Casa Dega
39. A One Story Town (tied)
39. Kings Highway (tied)
38. A Thing About You
37. A Face in the Crowd
36. Something Big
35. Time to Move On

34. The Wild One, Forever
33. Nightwatchman
32. Love is a Long Road
31. Walls (1 shoutout for Circus, 1 shoutout for No. 3)
30. Dogs on the Run

29. You Don’t Know How It Feels
28. Insider
27. Runaway Trains
26. Southern Accents (tied)
26. Mary Jane’s Last Dance (tied)
25. Learning To Fly (1 shoutout for Live w/Stevie Nicks)

24. Wildflowers
23. Shadow of a Doubt (A Complex Kid)
22. Yer So Bad
21. Crawling Back to You
20. I Need To Know

19. I Won't Back Down
18. You Wreck Me
17. Runnin' Down a Dream
16. Free Fallin'
15. Rebels

14. Jammin' Me
13. Change of Heart
12. Listen to Her Heart
11. Don't Come Around Here No More
10. Breakdown

SPOTIFY PLAYLIST: http://open.spotify.com/user/dustradio/playlist/2VZLJQ5wrhbDspcOy9Y0mR

http://i.imgur.com/V41mNT1.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/rxcW7Bn.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/YElRxj4.jpg

Six outstanding Tom Petty songs that will not be in this poll:

Ain't Love Strange
Let Me Up (I've Had Enough)
Letting You Go
No Second Thoughts
Red River
A Self Made Man

Time to Move On
All Mixed Up
You and I Will Meet Again

"Let Me Up (I've Had Enough)" is pretty great

Time to Move On was at #35

Yeah, for me it's about that moment in the chorus when the bass and drums bear down real hard before that I'VE HAD ENUUUFFFFFF

12 of the songs I voted for (including my top 4) have already showed up. I know my #5 will be showing up soon, too.

whoops missed it! xpost

man Wildflowers is the best collection of songs Rick Rubin ever produced in the nineties, isn't it?* I listened to it today and was hard pressed to find a song that's out of place or mawkish or terrible. I suppose I could shorten it, but I'm not sure where to start.

* I actually like Jagger's Wandering Spirit a lot.

Speaking of Wildflowers, what's up with the impending Wildflowers II? It's supposed to be a bundle of session outtakes that was to be added to a deluxe edition of the album, but recently has been mooted as a separate release.

Good point Mr. Pollrunner. Part of the problem for me is the production/arrangements on Southern Accents. But that just points to my larger problem with this album. I just don't buy it, the way I do Southern Rock Opera or Good Old Boys for example.

Am I expecting too much of this poll to think "Finding Out" might make the top 10?

that's what we'll be finding out

I guess it's a long shot, I figure it's pretty much hits from here on (apart from Straight Into Darkness, which I just assume is in here).

xxpost totally agree the album's a mess, and Petty readily concedes he failed to follow through on the concept.

Man, I really expected "It'll All Work Out" to land somewhere in the top 40, but unlikely to be top 10. u disappoint me, ilm.

I wonder if that song's only gotten exposure in the last decade. I really don't know.

I need to know!

I bought Let Me Up when I was in high school, so it's been a personal favorite of mine for 20+ years. It probably found a new audience when it was in Elizabethtown, though.

It made https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthology:_Through_the_Years too, right? I'm assuming the entire top 20, except 'You Wreck Me' which is outside the timeframe, are going to be tracks from the Anthology.

That's where I first heard it. I wasn't sure if Elizabethtown had any kind of following.

Perhaps not the film, but it came out when people were still buying the soundtracks to Cameron Crowe movies.

wow "It'll All Work Out" is beautiful...i'm sure i listened to it when i was making my deep cuts playlist a couple years ago but i don't remember it, which is crazy because it's great, probably woulda voted for it if i stumbled across it in my recent listening. ton of very sad youtube-esque comments on here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APeP73X0Wc4

I like how you're warming up to Let Me Up, ship.

i was just thinking earlier about how i feel about the "Free Fallin'" scene in Jerry Maguire...has to be the biggest use of a Petty song in a movie, right? mixed feelings about the movie and the scene but i think it actually did help me think of the song in terms of being kind of a cry of desperation instead of just a catchy chorus.

wow, "breakdown" seems insanely low to me at #10. the classic rockiest of his classic rock staples. such a great groove. and that riff. and those backing vocals.

It'll All Work Out is unique in how it blends Celtic folk and Far East overtones/undertones. Never quite heard anything like it.

this poll has made me really wanna get into cougar town.

Surprised Breakdown isn't higher but that's pretty good. I got the first album when it was the only album, and Breakdown sounded unlike anything else I'd ever heard, to my kid earholes.

I've been trying to put my finger on exactly what makes so much Tom Petty great. He's remarkably unambitious - little in the way of big-picture political statements or aspirational poetry - and the skill of his band is what tempers some of his more cliched instincts. Yet maybe that's just it. He doesn't just keep it simple, he keeps it tasteful, which is a whole 'nother skill set, and just as the Heartbreakers are totally ace at turning something boilerplate into rock and roll gold, he's always proved receptive to his band and the ideas they bring, which is another underrated skill set that few bandleaders have managed to maintain for so long.