The one song Tom Petty never wanted to copy: “I don’t feel constrained”
When you look through Tom Petty’s discography, the songwriter is no stranger to releasing exciting pieces of music, and there are certainly some standout moments.
Petty was one of those songwriters whom we, as listeners, are allowed to feel somewhat envious of. When Leonard Cohen wrote ‘Hallelujah’, he pined over the tune and the lyrics for over 100 takes, as such, while we are still blown away by that track, the genius of it feels somewhat justified given how much of an ordeal it was to create.
It’s difficult to say the same for Tom Petty, as while we still love listening to his music, his genius is harder to understand. He’s one of those creatives who has a knack for songwriting built into him, and that means great tunes simply spill out of his subconscious. For the most part, with Petty, he would pen songs in one sitting, often going into a trancelike state and not snapping out of it until he had a finished product.
When talking about the track ‘Wildflowers’, Petty explained what the process of writing the song was like. “I just took a deep breath, and it came out. The whole song. Stream of consciousness: words, music, chords. Finished it,” explained Petty, “I mean, I just played it into a tape recorder, and I played the whole song, and I never played it again. I actually only spent three and a half minutes on that whole song. So I’d come back for days playing that tape, thinking there must be something wrong here because this just came too easy. And then I realised that there’s probably nothing wrong at all.”
While not every song was as easy to write as ‘Wildflowers’ was, Petty was the kind of musician who could tap into a free-flowing sense of genius pretty easily. That being said, while lyrics came to him naturally, the tone of songs (and subsequently albums) did change depending on what was happening in his life. For instance, ‘Refugee’ was a track inspired by a certain disdain he felt toward the music industry.
“This was a reaction to the pressures of the music business. I wound up in a huge row with the record company when ABC Records tried to sell our contract to MCA Records without us knowing about it, despite a clause in our contract that said they didn’t have the right to do that,” he said, “I was so angry with the whole system that I think that had a lot to do with the tone of the Damn the Torpedoes album.”
Petty continued, “I was in this defiant mood. I wasn’t so conscious of it then, but I can look back and see what was happening. I find that’s true a lot. It takes some time, usually, before you fully understand what’s going on in a song – or maybe what led up to it.”
The song was arguably one of Petty’s most well-received. Fans everywhere loved it, as it was a great track that also contained barrels of emotion that listeners could connect with. The overall theme of the song is something that Petty felt somewhat compelled to lean into again, but decided to move away from, at risk of making the same song over and over. He continued to embrace his freedom as an artist and let his music move on depending on what was happening in his life. ‘Refugee’ remained a standalone moment in a long and successful career.
“I enjoy the fact that I don’t feel constrained to make a song like ‘Refugee’ over and over again,” he said in an interview with the Chicago Tribune, concluding, “I think your music has to grow as you grow as a person, and you have to constantly keep finding a way that you’re of some significance to the music. There’s no need to buy the 10th Tom Petty album if it’s not any different from the first nine.”
