The classic rock lyric Tom Petty thought was worth “a million bucks”
In a recent study posted in the Springer Nature journal, it was finally scientifically ratified that “an adolescent’s social position and pre-existing psychosocial problems can affect his/her choice of music.”
For Tom Petty, the problem and position amounted to feeling isolated and angsty in rural Florida, and the answer was to escape on the highway of rock ‘n’ roll.
“Most people come to Florida to escape something – cold weather, their past, whatever,” he told Spin back in 1989. “And they’re very content about it. I was always uncontent. I ran a little faster than Florida.” Like many postwar youths, he was hungry for something different, something to call his own. He couldn’t get by on sunbathing alone.
So, it was the adrenalised pulse of rock ‘n’ roll and the dreamy way that it seemed to defibrillate a slumbering society that Petty turned his attention to. And there was one keen lyric that launched him towards the riffing, rough and tumble brand that he would one day emulate.
While he might have been a fan of Elvis Presley ever since he met him in person when he was just ten years old, opining that ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ could have “been the national anthem”, he preferred the pulse and relatable spirit of disillusionment being offered up by bands on the far side of the pond. “The energy that came with the British Invasion was the difference,” he told Rolling Stone.
“These guys brought the guitar to the fore. You weren’t getting guitar off the Shirelles.”
One band embodied that vital angst better than anyone: The Rolling Stones. And it just so happens that the song Keith Richards thinks contains their greatest riff might just contain their greatest lyric, too. “They had so much attitude, it dripped off the plate,” Petty proudly asserted as a fan of the band that Pete Townshend described as one of only two truly classic rock acts (the other being The Who).
This attitude was writ large across the all-encapsulating ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’, and so it became a song that Petty always held as a firm favourite. It arrived in his youth, just as he was turning 15 in 1965, and shepherded his mind just a few miles further afield of Gainesville than it had been before he heard it. “The riff and distortion grab you, and the lyric is so worldly,” he said.
Relating to Jagger’s cutting remark about contentedness proving elusive, he added in high praise, “It’s a great moment in rock history. Just the phrase is worth a million bucks.” That titular phrase captured more weight than five measly words should be able to manage.
The Oxford academic, Nicholas Tochka, argued that from the outside, “Rock ’n’ roll seemed to come out of nowhere, causing otherwise normal adolescents to behave in ways that deeply concerned parents.” This is exactly the sort of song that alarmed them, and Petty would argue that was profoundly important. It was a lyric the youth knew well, and having it spelt out in such gripping tones gave them something to hang their hat on as they looked to fashion a ‘movement’.
While he also added, “It’s hard to talk about ‘Satisfaction’ because everyone knows it so well,” it seems that ubiquity is merely a product of relatability. That teenage notion of feeling out of step, out of time, and unfulfillingly out of place is a timeless truism embodied by everything about the song, but it’s the simple title lyric that crystallises it all with shocking clarity and renders the whole thing perfectly timeless.
