T or F: If Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers had written and recorded "You May Be Right" instead of Billy Joel, it would have been among their best songs and greatest achievements

When I was like 22, I drove to NYC to visit. I got lost leaving Brooklyn, got behind an ambulance that said BEDFORD-STUYVESANT on the back and went whoa... I'm driving through the Bedford-Stuy alone!

Anyway, I can't picture Roger McGuinn Petty singing any of those mudda and fadda lyrics from Long Island. Would love to see a Petty video where he appears a ghost to a suicidal teen and plays a snippet of "Even the Losers" on the harmonica for him.

This is music for Delaware County, PA rapists.

What music do the rapists in Montgomery County listen to?

any time i hear "Marshall Tucker," i always think of this Howard Stern sketch (recorded not long after Toy Caldwell died):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9aXNmuC8Yc

seriously, whatever Tom Petty's other faults may be he simply doesn't possess Billy Joel's smug, innate nastiness = he'd never even think of recording something like "you may be right"

ha -- he's done it repeatedly!

he's just better at it

Yeah "You Got Lucky" ups the ante on "You May Be Right." what saves it from smugness is the hurt in the vocal. It's a wounded guy lashing out at a girl who's already gone.

I was hoping you'd jump in here, tips.

the premise of this song is such bull, "You May Be Right" would be one of the weakest songs on Petty's GH if it was on there

when I first heard the song as a kid I imagined some fat, dirty, smelly biker guy with a mustache and long, unkempt hair was singing this song.

shocked me when I first saw the video and saw Billy Joel singing it

billy joel has the psyche of a fat, dirty, smelly biker dude with a mustache and long, unkempt hair.

and sartorially he seems to fancy himself the Fifth Ramone ... sunglasses, black leather biker jacket, blue jeans.

Billy Joel now looks like a fat, dirty, smelly biker guy with a mustache and long, unkempt hair.

tbh, back in the day billy joel seemed to fancy himself a greasy NYC tough -- like this video, where Billy and crew morph from looking they walked offa the set of either mean streets or the warriors into the slick 1970s NYC studio hobbits that they really were:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3JFEfdK_Ls&feature=player_embedded#!

tom petty vs. billy joel poll?

LISTEN, that's simply the greatest segue in 70s videos. "Yo, Vito. Let's get movin'. Cetera's waiting for us back in the studio!"

LET'S SEE OL' MR. THE WAITING IS THE HARDEST PART PULL SOMETHING LIKE THIS OFF.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhJg1finpyU

otm, also never seen that video before - awesome.

ok that video is kinda neat ... it also gets right to what a scuzz BJ is.

lol compare that song with "Elstree" by the Buggles - songs from 1980 with responsporial vocals that go "O-o-o-o" or "O-o-o."

Oh man, I love ''Elstree'' and wd buy a comp of only such songs

lene lovich's "lucky number" pretty much reigns high and mighty over that particular singing tic, does it not?!?

Just listened to that - great song, but different kind of "oh ooh OHHH" I'd say.

xp The music, vocal melody and production of "You Got Lucky" are a million times more enjoyable than anything in "You May Be Right."

Speaking of "Sometimes a Fantasy," as much as I love Tom Petty, I don't think he has the strength to do this to a piano:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqY6mXULzpw

That's true, "You Got Lucky" has aged well.

I've never disliked You Got Lucky.. I'm not sure why it's been used here for comparison.

How weird it is to see the "You Got Lucky" video today... a young Tom Petty & Heartbreakers finding 30-year-old video games and music equipment. Only change they'd need to make is to have them drive up in a PT Cruiser.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTAhZKP5wCY

I've never disliked You Got Lucky.. I'm not sure why it's been used here for comparison.

I mentioned it just cuz it's sort of thematically similar to "You May Be Right" -- both are basically assertions of "Hey, I'm pretty awesome" to obviously skeptical women.

(And I've always liked the video's complete lack of engagement with the lyrics. It's endearing and makes me wish there had been a Saturday morning cartoon featuring a time-traveling Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.)

idk "You May Be Right" to me comes across as "I'm a piece of crap, but c'mon, you know you really love me..and besides some of my craziness is your fault".

xpost

What exactly is Billy's problem in that clip? The audience just seem to be grooving.

The show was part of Billy's USSR tour, and was being filmed for a documentary/home video release. The lighting crew/director kept bringing up the house lights on the audience in order to get crowd shots. It distracted Billy, obviously, but his claim was that he didn't want the audience to feel like Soviet cops were watching them.

Also, those Yamaha electric pianos weigh as much as Rhode Island. Billy must've turned into the Hulk or something.

HULK JOEL TAKES SHIT FROM NOBODY

i fucking hate this song so much

Friday night HULK SMASH YOUR PARTY
Saturday, Hulk say HULK SORRY
Sunday came,
HULK SMASH IT OUT AGAIN

lol

hahaha

irl lol

If CCR had written and recorded "Witchy Woman" instead of the Eagles...
― chocolatepiekid, Friday, 4 December 2009 20:00 (2 years ago) Permalink

I can sorta hear Petty singing You Might Be Right, and it would sorta work, but what I really want to hear is ^^^

okay full confession: I did not know Kool G Rap's "Road to the Riches" was built around a Billy Joel sample

I don't know if it would be the best thing ever, but this thread is making me wish I could hear Petty covering this tune. He released a live box set with a ton of covers recently, so I guess it could still happen. Someone should send him this thread.

I actually had the idea one night listening to some prog song that it could be converted to the chiming guitars and McGuinn-isms of Petty. I think it was "Northern Lights" by Renaissance, but I just listened to that, and I must have been high.

okay full confession: I did not know Kool G Rap's "Road to the Riches" was built around a Billy Joel sample

Yeah! That's the one being played at the beginning of the "My Life" video upthread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC2Up4-LJM0

"You May Be Right" as is would fit right in on a Johnny Cougar (Mellancamp) album like American Fool or Uh Huh, when his sound was pretty much cold tapping the Stones before he brought in the violin and the accordion. I definitely think "You May Be Right" has a big time Stones sound especially with the harp and beat.

I think it is a pretty good rock and roll tune, there is just the automatic flinch factor that it is the dude that did "Piano Man".

if looks could kill, this dude's face is genocide

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Billy_Joel_Shankbone_NYC_2009.jpg

The Lemon Pipers' Green Tambourine album has at least four of these!!! Through With You for Devo, Ask Me If I Care for Buffalo Springfield, and Turn Around Take A Look for Three Dog Night.... and Rainbow Tree for the Monkees. i think it'd be a SUPER beloved Monkees song if they'd done it in their psychedelic moment (not saying it'd beat out Porpoise Song, but people would love it).

I've always really liked the songs on this, album but I feel like I don't see them talked about that much... how is it rated by folks here who listen to a lot of stuff at the psychedelic/bubblegum interzone?

This might be too obvious: When I hear "High and Dry" by Radiohead (without the Saturday Night, apologies to Def Leppard), I imagine "Mayonaise"-era Billy Corgan absolutely crushing that vocal.

Years ago on the Billy Joel listening thread, one of you mentioned an alternative universe where Neil Young wrote and performed "Allentown" and I haven't gotten that version out of my head since.

how is it rated by folks here who listen to a lot of stuff at the psychedelic/bubblegum interzone

i have a friend who's really into this stuff, i'll ask him.

i know they were anthologized on some early '80s bubblegum comps on Rhino. i was almost about to say they were on "Nuggets", but that was the Lemon Drops.

imo it's the songwriting that's lacking here and i don't like the aesthetic enough to look past that -- not when there's so much more fun to be had wading through tommy james and paul revere deep cuts.

"fifty year void" is kind of fun in an "up in her room" sorta way

I feel like I don't see them talked about that much

I was recently thinking of the Lemon Pipers as an example of "bands where you love one song, and never even tried to hear another".

I imagine "Mayonaise"-era Billy Corgan absolutely crushing that vocal.

There's no way he could ever have hit those notes in "High and Dry".

...in the chorus, that is, he could manage the verses.

Pink Floyd's "Not Now John" as written and recorded by Guns N Roses

(Axl singing it an octave higher obv)

I can hear Billy doing "High and Dry!" "Drown" would be basically the template.

re: Lemon Pipers: that's interesting, budo jeru! I just listened to the album again and I do think they're short on songs; it's a real drop-off after the ones I mentioned, the title track, and "Blueberry Blue." Somehow there are two different shoe-themed filler character sketches. But that top tier is pretty strong IMHO, just sometimes a more muscular vocal, and definitely more engaged drumming, would be more to my taste. I guess that's why I thought of this thread for them...

to me, the most promising thing about AI is the eventual realization of all the ideas in this thread

and being able to instantly generate all of the covers and mashups that come into head throughout the day.

what would i even need my records or my spotify account for at that point??

thought that originally brought me here was Roger Waters and Dark Side-era Floyd performing an epic downtempo version of the Family Guy theme song, lol

If Talkings Heads had written and recorded Rusted Root’s “send me on my way” , it would have been among their best songs and greatest achievements.

someone's gonna literally make the Sinbad Shazam movie now aren't they