“Trying to imitate”: The singer Tom Petty thought had the voice of an angel
Rock and roll has never been the land of showstopping vocalists. Some artists can certainly carry a tune, but no other genre can boast singers as different as Freddie Mercury and Bob Dylan and claim that both have contributed equally to the legacy of the genre. Even though Tom Petty never claimed to have the greatest voice of his peers, he knew that he was listening to the sweet sounds of heaven whenever this artist’s voice came over the radio.
Listening back to Petty’s back catalogue, though, it’s not like he couldn’t belt when needed. Whether reaching the top of his range on ‘Refugee’ or testing the limits of his voice during ‘You and I Will Meet Again’, he knew that he could stretch his voice beyond the lackadaisical singer-songwriter voice that most people knew him for.
Even on his hits, Petty never held back in the vocal department. Despite it being one of his most well-known tunes, ‘Free Fallin’ is a deceptively difficult song to master as a singer, especially when he gets to the chorus, and he hits the high note in full chest voice, which would take any singer a few tries to get down properly.
Then again, all of Petty’s favourite bands had great singers in their ranks. Excluding Dylan’s world-weary voice, Elvis Presley was the one who exposed Petty to a soulful croon, and when The Beatles hit the scene in 1964, he knew that he needed to step up his vocal game if he wanted to be known as one of the best in his native Gainsville. In a world full of those harmony singers, though, no one sounded as good as The Beach Boys.
The whole reason why Brian Wilson formed the group was based on how they all sounded together, but there was a certain magic that happened when his brother Carl sang. Even though Brian had a child-like innocence to his voice, there was a good reason why Carl was singing ‘God Only Knows’, usually tip-toeing around the melody and putting a hint of melancholy behind every line he sang.
Despite The Beach Boys going on a downhill slide in the 1990s, Petty still considered Carl to be the gold standard of singers when working on the heartbreaking tune ‘Room at the Top’, saying, “I was really trying to imitate Carl Wilson of The Beach Boys, with his angelic voice.” If you listen to the meaning behind the song, using Wislon as a model is no accident.
If ‘God Only Knows’ was a song of devotion, then ‘Room at the Top’ is what happens when two soulmates have to part. Even though Petty wanted to keep his divorce close to his chest throughout the album, hearing him pleading with his ex-wife to take him back is like listening to the character in The Beach Boys’ song watch all of his dreams crumble at his feet.
Even though it’s rarely an upbeat tune, Petty did get the chance to sound even more angelic on ‘Hung Up and Overdue’ on the soundtrack to She’s the One, complete with a feature from Carl on background vocals and having Ringo Starr sit in behind the drumkit. Whereas most people get into rock and roll for the glory, there was a spiritual feeling in the music that Petty heard every time those California-style harmonies came out of the speakers.
