Archives for October 2017

Certain Songs #1031: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – “Supernatural Radio”

October 31, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: Songs and Music from the Motion Picture “She’s The One”
Year: 1996

This is probably the weirdest entry in Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers catalog: ostensibly a motion picture soundtrack, She’s The One (as I’m going to call it) doesn’t really feature soundtrack music per se (exception, “Airport,” a jazzy instrumental at the end), has a few leftovers from Wildflowers (which had they been on Wildflowers would have been credited to TP only) and — weirdest of all — the only covers that ever appeared on a Tom Petty studio album: Beck’s “Asshole” and Lucinda Williams “Changed The Locks.”

Which was the last song I wrote about before Tom Petty died.

Certain Songs #1030: Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers – “Walls (Circus)”

October 30, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: Songs and Music From She’s The One
Year: 1996

Like most of the other rockers of his generation, Tom Petty had his entire world turned around by The Beatles. So much so that after John Lennon was shot, he had “We love you J.L.” etched on the run-out groove of Hard Promises.

And, of course, unlike most of the other rockers of his generation — except for Linda Eastman, of course — Tom Petty not only became close with one of the Beatles, they co-founded a band together.

Still, for all of that, his music never really felt as derived from The Beatles as it did their contemporaries like The Byrds, Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones.

Certain Songs #1029: Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers – “Wildflowers (Toronto 3-17-1995)”

October 29, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Live Anthology
Year: 1995

On the short list of The Prettiest Songs Ever Written, Tom Petty Division, “Wildflowers” was an atypical opening number for the album for which it also served as the title track : it was neither a single nor an uptempo rocker, which was usually how he opened his records.

But of course, it didn’t matter: “Wildflowers” was always about setting a mood of wistfulness. And hope. And regret. But most of all, inevitability of change.

Certain Songs #1028: Tom Petty – “Crawling Back To You”

October 28, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: Wildflowers
Year: 1994

Usually, I like to prepare for all of this: when I know I’m getting near time to write about an artist about whom I’m going to go really deep, I’ll start incorporating their music in my life in weeks in advance — watching YouTube videos while on the elliptical; putting their songs on my house mix; reading books about their life and/or works.

That’s what I did with Led Zeppelin earlier this year, and what I’ll be doing next year with Neil Young.

But of course, because he basically dropped dead with no warning, I had no chance to do all of that with Tom Petty. Of course, in the weeks since he died, I’ve immersed myself in his music, hoping to glean some kind of insights on old favorites, as well as maybe discover some new favorites.

Certain Songs #1027: Tom Petty – “Time To Move On”

October 27, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: Wildflowers
Year: 1994

The seventh time I saw Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers was with Sherilyn & Kim at Neil Young’s Bridge School show at the Shoreline Amphitheatre on October 2, 1994.

It was about a month before Wildflowers dropped, and it was cool that Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers previewed some new songs from that record: this one, “You Don’t Know How It Feels” and the hilarious b-side, “Girl on LSD.”

Certain Songs #1026: Tom Petty – “You Don’t Know How It Feels”

October 26, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: Wildflowers
Year: 1994

Nobody knew it at the time, of course, but Tom Petty’s first single for his new record company — Warner Bros — was the last top 20 single this quintessential singles artist ever charted.

At the time, of course, it seemed like he could go on forever: the previous year, the song added to his contractually obligated Greatest Hits album — “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” — was also a huge smash, making it the one time in the history of adding a new song to a greatest hits album actually worked.

Certain Songs #1025: Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers – “Built To Last”

October 25, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: Into The Great Wide Open
Year: 1991

Into The Great Wide Open was probably Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers most stylistically cohesive album since Long After Dark nearly a decade before, and there were a lot of worthy songs: the swampy-rocker “Out in The Cold,” the widescreen cautionary tale “Into The Great Wide Open,” the lovely “All The Wrong Reasons” (or as I’ve always called it, “Re-Falling”) (and yes, I only wrote this paragraph in order to work that joke in) are all worthy entries into the upper middle reaches of Petty’s canon.

But my favorite song on the entire record was the the one songs that didn’t really sound like the rest of the record, the near doo-wop closer “Built to Last.”

Certain Songs #1024: Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers – “Learning To Fly”

October 24, 2017 by Jim Connelly

The sixth time I saw Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers was with Holly and Craig at Selland Arena in Fresno on November 26, 1991. They totally rocked it for over two hours.

Naturally, this date isn’t listed on any of the online sites that list such things — and man does the UI for setlist.fm suck! — but I seem to remember that it all seemed to be last-minute, which was pretty much par for the course for me back then, especially for a show at Selland, a place I don’t think I’d been to since Simple Minds (also a last-second decision) back in the summer of 1986.

Certain Songs #1023: Tom Petty – “Runnin’ Down a Dream”

October 23, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: Full Moon Fever
Year: 1989

Ladies and Gentlemen, Mike Campbell!

I’m pretty sure I haven’t understated the importance of Mike Campbell to Tom Petty’s music. Certainly, Petty didn’t: when he was signed to a deal in the wake of Mudcrutch’s failure, Campbell was the first person he reached for, and he subsequently featured on every single album — hell, probably every single song — that Tom Petty ever released.

Certain Songs #1022: Tom Petty – “I Won’t Back Down”

October 22, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: Full Moon Fever
Year: 1989

The fifth time I saw Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers was at the Universal Ampitheater in Studio City on January 24, 1990, but they weren’t even the reason I was there.

No, the reason that John, Nikki, Mark & I drove down to L.A. was to see the taping of the eighth anniversary special of Late Night With David Letterman, which was still my favorite pop culture thing in the universe, so seeing Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers as the special musical guest was icing on the cake.