The classic Tom Petty song Roger McGuinn turned down
There’s no rule that says every songwriter must be in love with every piece of music they make. For all of the classics that will be around long after they’re gone, just as many tracks might hit the author the same way they had initially thought when laying things down. While Tom Petty may have had some fantastic material stored in the backlogue, he admitted that this early ballad never connected with him like other songs did.
Before he had even earned his start, it looked like Petty would be one of the many casualties of the music industry. After getting a deal with the band Mudcrutch in the mid-1970s, Petty’s band would be dropped in favour of him as a songwriter, leading to him bringing back certain members to put together the beginnings of The Heartbreakers.
While the band may have released their debut album during the punk movement, Petty was never meant to be from the same generation as Ramones and Sex Pistols. Across songs like ‘Breakdown’ and ‘American Girl’, Petty was far more interested in writing songs he loved to hear growing up, making tracks that felt like the natural progression from bands like The Byrds and The Beatles.
As the band prepared to get into the studio for their second album, they had pressure to come through with another massive single. Since the debut barely made waves in the US, many songs were crafted to be hits, with Petty mixing rockers with uptempo ballads on ‘I Need To Know’ and ‘Listen To Her Heart’.
Out of all the downtempo material on the record, ‘Magnolia’ would be one of the main highlights, telling the story of a doomed romance that only lasts for a few nights. Although this showed Petty’s ability to write an amazing ballad, he never really thought that much of the tune compared to the other songs he had in the backlogue.
When talking about the track, Petty initially wrote it for Roger McGuinn to sing, having just come off of working with The Byrds. While Petty admitted to being a huge fan of McGuinn, he was met with a firm rejection once McGuinn heard the song.
As Petty would tell Paul Zollo years later, “That was one written and made to order for Roger McGuinn. He declined to do it, so I did it. I just made myself write a song. I wrote it with Roger in mind. Maybe to a fault. I really did an imitation of Roger. I don’t know why he didn’t like it, but he didn’t want to do it”.
Even though McGuinn didn’t take kindly to ‘Magnolia’, he never stopped being a fan of Petty’s. After recording his own version of ‘American Girl’, McGuinn would call upon Petty’s services one more time when putting together his solo track ‘King of the Hill’, intended for his comeback album Back From Rio.
That did nothing to dissuade Petty, though, eventually honing his craft even further on Damn the Torpedoes, where he would deliver even more heartbreaking ballads like ‘Louisiana Rain’. Although Petty may have had a style of heartland rock all his own, he wouldn’t have gotten there without McGuinn vicariously teaching him the ropes of songwriting.
