The 1985 song Tom Petty was “lucky” to have written: “It was one of those magic moments”
Tom Petty is a musician with an incredibly high watermark.
Most artists tend to have benchmark tracks that are classic in their catalogue. Even though it might be fun trying to make songs outside of one’s comfort zone, these tracks are usually the songs that reserve a special place in the fans’ hearts, either the lead-off single or one of the many great deep cuts in their catalogue.
Although Tom Petty may have had countless potential classics with the Heartbreakers and beyond, he considered himself lucky to have written one particular American anthem.
Before Petty had even landed his big break, though, his vision for his career was already centred around making something bigger than the traditional love song. Throughout tracks like ‘Refugee’ and ‘American Girl’, Petty dissected what the American dream means to everyone who has dared to live it, trying desperately to fight against the odds and make a living doing what they love.
While most of Petty’s greatest songs didn’t come without a fight, he was just as much a danger to himself as the forces around him. Although the band may have been a tight unit working throughout the late 1970s, the mid-1980s were not kind to them when approaching their album Southern Accents.
Despite being one of the most successful bands in the world, Petty’s decision to take a break from each other led to many of the musicians picking up a drug problem. After trying to make a double album out of the material he had assembled, Petty struggled to get anything done in the studio, leading to an outburst of rage that caused him to break his hand.
Although Petty wanted a more hands-on role with the production, he eventually enlisted Jimmy Iovine to return to get the right songs on the record. Even though the band would eventually slave over getting songs like ‘Rebels’ down on tape, the album’s title track captures a piece of magic Petty rarely visited again.
That sense of magic is what separates a good song from something that lingers for decades. Petty had built a career on sharp songwriting and an instinct for melody, but moments like this felt less constructed and more discovered, as if the song had been waiting for him rather than the other way around.
It also explains why he held it in such high regard compared to the rest of his work. For an artist who made a living out of consistency, ‘Southern Accents’ represented something fleeting and unrepeatable, a rare instance where everything aligned emotionally and musically without needing to be forced.
Dominated by Benmont Tench’s piano, Petty paints a beautiful picture of the American south with a few deft strokes, being proud of his roots and seeing the romantic side of simple living. The song would also become hauntingly personal for Petty when talking about a dream that he had of his mother, who had passed away a few years before the album came out.
While the song wouldn’t be played that often live, Petty would consider it one of the most gripping pieces of music he had ever made. Even with thousands of songs under his belt, Petty said that the song came from a higher power rather than any songwriting experience.
Discussing his discography with Paul Zollo, Petty said that he thought luck was on his side when writing the track, saying, “I’d be lucky to write even one more on that level. It was just one of those magic moments, writing that song. It’s really gratifying, if you’re a songwriter, to get one of those. It really makes it all worthwhile. To me, it did. This is a payoff for me”.
Compared to his vast catalogue about celebrating the heart of America, ‘Southern Accents’ is the kind of song that cuts to the root of what the country is all about, being proud of where they came from and not willing to apologise for their passions. Petty might have been born to play rock and roll, but this breathtaking look at the American countryside is something that Johnny Cash could have written in an instant.
