The band Tom Petty said “opened his eyes”
It’s no surprise that music takes centre stage in the classic time travel movie Back to the Future. The sounds of the 1980s are defined in the opening sequence by Huey Lewis and the News’ ‘Power of Love’, while later, back in the ’50s, Marty McFly seems to kickstart the rock ‘n’ roll wave with a rendition of Chuck Berry’s ‘Johnny B. Goode’. Music serves as a powerful marker of time, and its evolutionary path is particularly susceptible to the so-called “butterfly effect”. Tom Petty understood this better than anyone.
Several writers and filmmakers have tried to imagine what the world might have been like had the Axis alliance won World War II. Robert Harris famously explored the dystopia that might have ensued throughout the late 20th century if Adolf Hitler had won in Europe. Needless to say, it was a grim depiction, and there was a notable absence of both rock and roll. In this situation, the blues would likely have persisted in some form across the Atlantic, but rock music likely wouldn’t have caught on in the Western world.
Crucially, in this scenario, Britain would have been held under the oppressive grip of Nazi rule. The 1957 church fête in Woolton during which Paul McCartney was first acquainted with John Lennon might have occurred as some fascist parade, but Lennon certainly wouldn’t have been invited to play his blues-derived skiffle music with The Quarrymen.
Even with the war ending as it did, the world would be quite different today if The Beatles had never formed. Their pivotal role in resuscitating rock music in the 1960s helped tip the scales in favour of a countercultural revolution in the West. Furthermore, if Lennon and McCartney had never met, Tom Petty would never have had his eyes opened, and he’s certainly not the only one.
Petty retraced rock ‘n’ roll history while giving a speech in acceptance of his MusiCares honour in 2017. He noted that after the outbreak of rock ‘n’ roll in the 1950s, the American government “got very nervous,” especially the Republicans.
“They put Elvis in the army, they put Chuck Berry in jail,” he said. “Things calmed down for a couple years, but it was too late, the music had reached England and they remembered it.”
At the age of ten, Petty realised his dream of becoming a rock star after meeting Elvis Presley. In the summer of 1961, his uncle was working on the set of Presley’s film Follow That Dream in Ocala and invited him along to watch the shoot. A dream manifested, but The Beatles gave him the energy to pursue it. “In 1964, The Beatles came, and I had my eyes opened like so many others, and I joined the conspiracy to put Black music on the popular white radio,” Petty added in his speech.
The first time Petty heard of the Fab Four was on the famous Ed Sullivan Show programme in February 1964. “The minute I saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show – and it’s true of thousands of guys – there was the way out. There was the way to do it. You get your friends, and you’re a self-contained unit. And you make the music. And it looked like so much fun,” Petty added on another occasion.
“I had been a big fan of Elvis. But I really saw in the Beatles that here’s something I could do. I knew I could do it. It wasn’t long before there were groups springing up in garages all over the place.”
As the latter 20th century played out, countless musical icons from the US cited The Beatles’ Ed Sullivan Show performance as a pivotal moment, including Billy Joel, Gene Simmons, Joe Perry, Nancy Wilson, Kenny Loggins, Mark Mothersbaugh and Bruce Springsteen. Petty may have been the most smug of the lot, given that he joined George Harrison in the Traveling Wilburys following his rise to fame with the Heartbreakers.
