‘Room at the Top’: The “most depressing” song Tom Petty ever wrote
Music has always been an emotional vehicle for any artist. Even though many people will try their damnedest to make a song that takes over the world, no one can go wrong when they speak from the heart and spend hours woodshedding until they put out something raw that fans can identify with. While Tom Petty tended to keep things fairly positive throughout his career, he admitted that ‘Room at the Top’ is probably the most downtempo and depressing track that he ever released to the public.
Because when you look at Petty’s track record, there aren’t a ton of songs that are about being pessimistic. It’s evident when he’s angry, but even when talking about the problems that he had with his record company on Damn the Torpedoes, he was still more than happy to put on a smiling face, as if he knew that his smartass demeanour would win out in the end.
What makes ‘Room at the Top’ even more strange is that it came from one of the greatest highs of Petty’s career in Wildflowers. Petty had already rubbed elbows with the greatest in the industry, and once he got his collaborations with Jeff Lynne out of his system, his second solo outing with Rick Rubin made for the most cinematic tracks he would ever create, like the title track and ‘It’s Good To Be King’.
There was an elephant in the room throughout it all, and it all came to a head after the Wildflowers tour when Petty separated from his wife. Instead of using Echo as an excuse to make his own version of Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks, songs like ‘Room at the Top’ are more about Petty laying into himself before anyone.
Outside of the calm backing track, Petty sounds completely weathered and torn up over losing the most important person in his life. Despite having a room at the top of the world, he can’t get any connection with his other half anymore, building to the moment where everyone’s heart shatters as he begs her to love him in return.
Although the rest of the album picks up some more energy from its opening track, Petty had no problem calling this the ultimate downer in his catalogue, telling Rolling Stone, “‘Room At the Top is the most depressing song I’ve ever written. I haven’t even wanted to hear it. Though the last time I heard Echo, I did think, ‘God, there’s a lot more on here than I remembered.”
Even if Petty couldn’t deliver his true feelings in his lyrics, his band more than makes up for it behind him. All of the anger of the breakup is felt the minute that Mike Campbell tears through his guitar solo, and despite eventually losing his battle with heroin addiction, Howie Epstein is more than willing to cry alongside Petty as he searches for some closure in the fallout of his marriage.
‘Room At The Top’ might not get the same kind of adulation as tunes like ‘I Won’t Back Down’ and ‘Free Fallin’, but somewhere in between those lines is the real Petty itching to get out. He had kept his audience at arm’s length throughout the project, but sometimes the truth ends up showing itself on songs like these a lot more than anyone intended.
