“I couldn’t believe how good it sounded”: the song that brought Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne together
As the beholders of two of the starriest back catalogues in all of rock music, between the Heartbreakers and ELO, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne each made the task of musical world domination look like small fry. As individuals, they were both a reckoning, but together, they were quite simply an unstoppable force – which is exactly why the moment when they first crossed paths became infused with so much electric magic.
Of course, what came about later down the line with The Traveling Wilburys was nothing short of sheer genius, but that was still a long way off when the pair first met. Petty recalled that he came into Lynne’s orbit as well as that of future fellow bandmates George Harrison and Bob Dylan after their European tour in 1986, saying: “We weren’t even thinking about being in a band together, but we loved having a few beers and just talking, just visiting. Kind of like when you see people and feel like you’ve known them for a long time. That’s how I related to George and Jeff.”
Four-fifths of The Traveling Wilburys now inadvertently complete out of a chance meeting, it was the following festive season that Petty and Lynne properly got the wheels in motion towards creating something special. However, ever the elusive artistic type, while you can imagine most Americans’ idea of spending Thanksgiving is with family or friends, in 1987, Petty took a different tack to the celebrations, which eventually led him to strike gold.
He explained: “I came home, and I was at a red light Thanksgiving Day, going to buy some baseball gloves, ’cause I wanted to play baseball real bad, and the only place open was Thrifty Drugs.” Bizarre as this may seem, the event was fatefully soundtracked by a sonic soulmate. He continued: “Now George had given me his Cloud Nine album just before it was released. I loved it, and I’d been playing it all day before I went to get these mitts.”
Then, in a sliding doors moment of epic proportions, “when I get to this light, and there’s Jeff, the next car over, it was like … He was going to produce Brian Wilson at the time. And he said, ‘Do you want to come to the studio with me?’ I said, ‘Nah, I’m going to play baseball’. But we agreed to stay in touch, and it turned out he lived in my neighbourhood, just up the street.”
From that point on, the touchpaper of an electric partnership was well and truly lit. In particular, there was one exceptional song that brought the two together. Petty recounted that: “After George went home [for Christmas ’87], Jeff stayed in LA, and we started playing around at home. I’d written this song called ‘Yer So Bad’. I played it for Jeff; he suggested a couple of chords, which made it so much better. I couldn’t believe how good it sounded.”
It’s amazing to think that ‘Yer So Bad’ has transcended and transformed a massive part of rock music history as the catalyst for The Traveling Wilburys and a whole host of collaborations across the sonic realm that sent fans into a spin and critics with a resounding seal of approval. If the Avengers ever branched into music, they would have definitely met their match with them.
