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

One of his best story songs: the gentle Lynneisms suit material about aging warriors tired to death of fighting (a song for our times). I like the descending melody in the "Now, right now, oh yeah" section.

The Dark Of The Sun

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr_LGFe7XeU

this sounds like something he wrote for someone else.

van morrison? mark knopfler? just sounds like someone else's song.

yeah van morrison? jackson browne?

Pete Shelley? Grace Jones?

This is what you'd call a Nice Song. In the Zollo book Petty expressed an interest in performing it live.

It's OK, not really much of a chorus.

Speaking of songs written for/with other people, I nominate his Roger McGuinn duet "King of the Hill" for consideration as a sort of bonus track to this album. It came out earlier the same year, and I like it better than anything on this record.

Yeah "80s Van Morrison" was my immediate thought, especially towards the end when we get the "hey yeah yeah!" bits and the "nuuuaaaaarrrh." I can hear the Knopfler too. The solo is once again the best part. Title reminds me too much of "Dogs on the Run," which doesn't flatter this song.

I feel like a broken record, but that steady, steady lifeless 4/4 drum beat is really stifliny all these songs. They're not like, deeply flawed compositions, but none of them sound like anybody urgently needed to write or perform them. If the band could sound a little more "live" or free to make decisions I don't think I'd notice that as much. We're getting dangerously close to karaoke band territory imo.

*stifling

All Or Nothin'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-lJXljp1YM

also doesn't really sound like a tom petty song! maybe he wrote it for Sir. George.

I like the bridge. A bit of a throwaway, though. I prefer this album's second side.

i'm getting the impression that this album is very underwhelming for most people here. you were the only person to even comment on that gunslingers song, alfred.

i still think if i listened to this whole album in one sitting i would enjoy the experience more. i never really thought this before, but TP really does think of creating an LP experience. the vibe. its not just some singles and some solid deep cuts and some filler. i mean, it is...but the whole is bigger when heard as a whole. if that makes sense. this is especially true of the albums later on. just my opinion. i think we can all agree that he had his share of throwaways.

Well, it's also a holiday week and I hear politics got spicy too.

Oh yeah I forgot all about about this one, it rules, imo!

hey I like Two Gunslingers! especially the fast "I don't wanna fight no more" bit

i'm getting the impression that this album is very underwhelming for most people here.

Yeah, I've been refraining from comment because I don't like any of these songs. They all sound like alternate takes of each other and they all suck. Jeff Lynne is a goddamn aesthetic war criminal. But because I like Petty generally, I'm just waiting to get to discussion of Wildflowers. (I know we have to talk about "Mary Jane's Last Dance," from the greatest hits album, but I don't really like that one either.)

One of my favorite Petty songs is coming up on the second half of this one.

i wonder what Petty with Nile Rodgers would have sounded like. or Bill Laswell! maybe they would have made him sound like a Mick Jagger solo album though.

Dave Stewart and Jeff Lynne were not the most exciting people he could have ended up with but he probably just liked them. got along with them. it happens.

A reminder that Lynch and Tench were not happy recording ITGWO.

i wonder what Petty with Nile Rodgers would have sounded like. or Bill Laswell! maybe they would have made him sound like a Mick Jagger solo album though.

He should have worked with Pete Anderson (the guy who produced all of Dwight Yoakam's early albums).

they probably got treated like session people. jeff lynne is only really going to care about TP's opinion on anything. he's used to being in bands with 50 members who had no say. probably. i just made that up. then again i don't know the name of anyone else in ELO so it sounds right.

x-post

agreed that every single one of these albums has played better for me at the end when I put it on as a whole. maybe goes back to my thinking of them as a great bar band who got greater - at heart, you kinda wanna be there for the set and the overall vibe they create.

i don't know the name of anyone else in ELO so it sounds right.

poor Bev Bevan

yeah also that violin guy. mik kaminski.

i couldn't think of anything to say about two gunslingers. the pacifist vibe seems so...quaint. i'd say ok boomer if i weren't a boomer myself. sort of.

oh right bev!

that one disco-y track from southern accents makes me feel ok that he never worked with nile tbh

You Want it All has a little more oomph to it than most of these tracks. It's not just the crunchier guitars... the piled-up sound towards the end is really nice. The handling of "aa-aaa-aaa-aa-aall" is the most I've liked Lynne's production on this whole album.

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