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

"american girl" is pretty indisputable. almost impossible to fathom that it's nearly 40 years old.

great intro. great bass. great drums. great backing vox from stan and benmont. great lyrics, great melody, great little rock'n'roll solo... it reaches back to the 50s but doesn't feel dated musically or lyrically. still hits hard if it catches me when i'm not looking.

sugarlips, fwiw when the time comes got some votes but faced tough sledding as a deep cut off maybe his most slept-on record

i have some love for the title track from that one too... not a perfect song but an interesting road not taken

I voted for a #1! this has never happened before!

can I just say that I love the Heartbreakers? Every player was gold. Not even the E Street Band had so many of its members have outside writer and producer credits. Listening to Through the Years, I noticed how every song had a different Campbell guitar tone or pedal, Lynch drum pattern, Tench melodic or contrapuntal keyboard part. I just love the sensation of listening to them.

great lyrics, great melody, great little rock'n'roll solo... it reaches back to the 50s but doesn't feel dated musically or lyrically

Petty said somewhere--presumably after hearing the Byrds soundalike thing for the umpteenth time--that the bands real aim for the track was to update vintage Bo Diddley.

and years later...Bo opens up for them, and stays on to jam!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVRtQUTd7Gk

re: the Heartbreakers, no doubt. without implying any comparisons, they're up there with the MGs and The Band for me. just a bunch of kids from Gainesville...

was it Petty or someone else who said that his greatest strength as a musician was talking people out of going to college?

xpost I hear Buddy Holly too, but i suppose that's redundant QED

Yeah the classic-era Heartbreakers were a heckuva unit. And bringing Howie in for Ron Blair made them even stronger on the harmonies. Between all of their extracurricular work, you could put together an impressive degrees-of-separation map.

and playlist. I knew Howie had produced those exquisite early '90s John Prine records, but not Carlene Carter's 1990 comeback.

Carlene Carter was in that stolen car with him in Albuquerque. If things had turned out different that could've been a funny story. To this day Petty's just like, "Man, Howie didn't even drive..."

well. shall we do this?

DO IT!

Christmas All Over Again time, right?

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41uvs63vDnL.jpg

HEARTBREAKERS BEACH PARTY!!!!

at last!

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

1. The Waiting – 442 points (14 votes, three #1)
Studio: http://youtu.be/uMyCa35_mOg
Live, 1985: http://youtu.be/QpG09PenZt8
Live (dueling acoustics!), 1988: http://youtu.be/-4L4Hh0-JmQ

not my #1 but not far off. the platonic ideal of a Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers song. i remember exactly where i was the first time i heard it.

haha I knew it was going to happen by process of elimination

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

^^ tom in storytelling mode is always worthwhile

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mDcZGRKQ_M

hearing him talk about coming up with the riff and then getting stuck for a week and then coming up with the chorus and getting stuck for a week is a real eye-opener -- you think about the 200 or so songs he's churned out at a pretty high level of quality and you wonder if most of them came together much quicker or if he's just agonizing over a different one almost every week.

i don't think it's agony exactly (except maybe for the other people in the house). you know you're on to something and you just have to stick with it long enough for it to start speaking to you.

i'd lay good money campbell has ~thousands~ of ideas recorded at various stages of polish.

waiting for Don Henleys

well, yeah

Great poll roger, many thanks.

http://www.newsobserver.com/latest-news/2byywf/picture7338920/ALTERNATES/FREE_640/15bft.So.156.jpeg

Huh. Like "The Waiting" a lot, but love "American Girl" so much more.

It's interesting, Petty and Springsteen. They're both about the same age, worshipped Dylan, etc., but Petty veered Byrds and Beatles while Bruce, as much as he, like everyone, loved those bands, veered Roy Orbison and some of the more dramatic '50s stuff. Which is ironic, of course, given Petty and Roy in the Wilburys later. And yet per that Dylan worship, there is so much more of him in Springsteen than there is in Petty, imo, vocals aside, and yet that's about the only non garage rock '60s stuff you hear in Bruce, whereas Petty is steeped in that era.

christ i can't believe "Deliver Me" didn't place esp considering "The Waiting" is #1 and the choruses are practically the same

great poll. you guys have weird taste in Tom Petty songs though.

xxposts thx tipsy... it was a treat spending these past few weeks with Petty and the resident headz!

Still wrapping my head around Campbell. His licks are dead-simple. Almost nothing that anyone who'd been playing for a few months couldn't cop, but feel, his sense of composition, and the impact he gets out of just 3 or 4 notes...

Great interview here: http://www.songfacts.com/blog/interviews/mike_campbell/

crüt if the verses were even half as strong as the bridge "deliver me" would have been top ten for me

I WAS BORN WITH SOMETHIN' DOWN INSIDE OF ME

'Don't it feel like tonight might never be again' is my favorite Petty lyric.

Thanks for running this, I really enjoyed it. Now seems as good a time as ever to mention I ran into Mike Campbell a few years ago in an ATL hotel lobby.
After thinking 'holy shit, that's Mike Campbell' I went up and introduced myself, and got out a 'thank you' without sounding too stupid. he was super nice and just kind of let out this 'ah thanks man'. Probably happens to him a lot.

Ballot!
1 The Waiting
2 Stop Draggin' My Heart Around
3 Here Comes My Girl
4 Even the Losers
5 Runaway Trains
6 American Girl
7 Don't Come Around Here No More
8 Straight Into Darkness
9 You Got Lucky
10 Change Of Heart
11 Refugee
12 Learning To Fly
13 You Don't Know How It Feels
14 Love Is A Long Road
15 A One Story Town
16 Kings Highway
17 Jammin' Me
18 The Damage You've Done
19 Insider
20 Think About Me

Good work, Mr. Mexico. Thanks for all the nonsense!

tracks:
Don’t Do Me Like That
Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around w/ Stevie Nicks
American Girl
Straight Into Darkness
Here Comes My Girl
Insider
Swingin’
Finding Out
Runnin’ Down A Dream
Learning To Fly
You Wreck Me
Shadow of a Doubt (A Complex Kid)
Even The Losers
We Stand A Chance
The Wild One, Forever
Into The Great Wide Open
Room At The Top
You Got Lucky
Mary Jane’s Last Dance
A Woman In Love (It's Not Me)

albums:
Long After Dark
Hard Promises
Damn The Torpedoes
Into The Great Wide Open
Southern Accents

Breakdown
Don't Do Me Like That
I Won't Back Down
You Got Lucky
Refugee
Free Fallin'
Stop Draggin' My Heart Around
Deliver Me
The Waiting
Listen To Her Heart
You Tell Me
Shadow of a Doubt (A Complex Kid)
Fooled Again (I Don't Like It)
What Are You Doin' In My Life?
Runnin' Down A Dream
Casa Dega
Don't Come Around Here No More
Luna
When The Time Comes
You Got It (Roy Orbison)

I had post-submission doubts about ranking "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" so highly but I decided to leave it there on the strength of the Weird Al parody "Stop Draggin' My Car Around"

ALBUMS

Damn the Torpedoes
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
Long After Dark
You're Gonna Get It!
Full Moon Fever

FINAL
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

9. A Woman In Love (It's Not Me)
8. You Got Lucky
7. Don't Do Me Like That
6. Refugee
5. Stop Draggin' My Heart Around
5. Straight Into Darkness

4. Even the Losers
3. Here Comes My Girl
2. American Girl
1. The Waiting

Honorable mentions:
• Everybody's All-American: American Girl appeared on more ballots than any other track
• You like me, you really like me: The Waiting, Breakdown, and Even the Losers received the most points per vote
• TOO LOW: Even the Losers received the most #1 rankings per ballot where it appeared
• It's the thought that counts: Jammin' Me, Wildflowers and The Wild One, Forever received the least points per vote (relative to their ranking)

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

wow the dueling acoustics version you posted is pretty great.

albums too!
1 Long After Dark
2 Damn The Torpedoes
3 Hard Promises
4 Let Me Up (I've Had Enough)
5 Full Moon Fever

I generally avoid the big airplay tracks, most of which had been edging close to played out for me.

Great Moments In Stan Lynch: Choosing a different point each time to come in on the chorus to "A Woman In Love..."

1. "A Woman In Love (It's Not Me)"
2. "You Wreck Me"
3. "Something Big"
4. "Hung Up And Overdue"
5. "Shadow of A Doubt (A Complex Kid)"
6. "Scare Easy" (Mudcrutch)
7. "Jammin' Me"
8. "Nightwatchman"
9. "Asshole"
10. "Listen To Her Heart"
11. "What Are You Doin' In My Life?"
12. "Walls #3"
13. "To Find A Friend"
14. "Insider"
15. "Swingin'"
16. "Straight Into Darkness"
17. "Louisiana Rain"
18. "Cabin Down Below"
19. "Last Nite" (Travelling Wilburys)
20. "Yer So Bad"

I for one would welcome a great moments in Stan Lynch thread.

you can totally hear why Iovine fired him so many times, but he's so great!

I for one would welcome a great moments in Stan Lynch Benmont Tench thread.

amen to that too

Postscript: an effect of this whole project has been that I'm being pulled to listen to everything all over again. I'm finding that I'm loving a lot more than I remembered. Most albums have several songs I do not care for but they also have more stuff I love that I didn't know I loved, so PEACE OUT, headz.

SONGS

Runnin’ Down a Dream
I Should Have Known It
Free Fallin’
Listen to Her Heart
Rebels
I Need to Know
American Girl
Here Comes My Girl
Jefferson Jericho Blues
Burnt Out Town
A Face in the Crowd
A Woman in Love (It’s Not Me)
Southern Accents
Fault Lines
It’s Good to Be King
A Thing About You
Out in the Cold
Running Man’s Bible
Nightwatchman
The Wild One, Forever

ALBUMS

Full Moon Fever
Mojo
The Live Anthology
Damn The Torpedoes
Hard Promises

1. Refugee
2. A Woman in Love (It’s Not Me)
3. Rebels
4. Jammin’ Me
5. Crawling Back to You
6. Something Big
7. Listen to Your Heart
8. You and I Will Meet Again
9. Runnin’ Down a Dream
10. Waiting For Tonight
11. Finding Out
12. Runaway Trains
13. You Got It
14. Here Comes My Girl
15. All Mixed Up
16. Two Gungslingers
17. Fault Lines
18. Last Night
19. Honey Bee
20. Wildflowers

Thanks so much to Mr. Mexico for running this excellent Tom Petty poll. It will live forever in the Century City of my heart.

1
Even the Losers
The Waiting
Straight Into Darkness
Ain’t Love Strange
Time To Move On
Don’t Do Me Like That
A One Story Town
No Second Thoughts
Shadow Of a Doubt
Deliver Me
Free Fallin
Change of Heart
Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough)
Dogs on the Run
Rebels
Feel a Whole Lot Better
American Girl
A Thing About You
Red River
Oh Maria (Mudcrutch)
20

Albums

Damn the Torpedos
Long After Dark
Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough)
Wildflowers
Hard Promises

American Girl
Refugee
Southern Accents
Breakdown
You Got Lucky
Don't Come Around Here No More
Trailer
Free Girl Now
Wildflowers
Here Comes My Girl
Waiting For Tonight
Runaway Trains
You Don't Know How It Feels
Dogs on the Run
The Last DJ
It's Good To Be King
Room at the Top
Keeping Me Alive
Straight Into Darkness
Casa Dega