The 1989 song Tom Petty wrote just to make Jeff Lynne laugh: “I love it”
In 1989, Tom Petty appeared almost invincible.
Over the previous ten years, he had effectively introduced his distinct flavour of southern rock to the public alongside his band, The Heartbreakers. This journey also led him to forge friendships with George Harrison and Bob Dylan, a factor that played a role in his involvement with The Traveling Wilburys in 1988.
As the decade neared its end, Petty’s aspiration to create his inaugural solo album led him to maintain a close-knit approach. While they might not have received an official acknowledgement, the majority of The Heartbreakers actively participated in the production of Full Moon Fever. However, the true mastermind behind the mixing console was Jeff Lynne, Petty’s fellow Wilburys band member and former frontman of Electric Light Orchestra.
Lynne recalls ‘Free Fallin’’ being the second song the pair wrote together, after getting a repetitive chord sequence and transforming the existing melody into a chorus. According to Lynne, its appeal was evident from the beginning: “Everyone who heard it knew it was a hit,” he claims, with a confidence that oozes from the track itself.
When ‘Free Fallin’’ was finally released, it quickly became one of Petty’s defining songs. The track climbed to number seven on the Billboard Hot 100 and helped Full Moon Fever become the most commercially successful album of his career. Built on little more than that simple descending chord pattern and Petty’s understated vocal delivery, the song proved that sometimes the most direct ideas are the most powerful.
When Petty tells the story, it’s clear that the two had a lot of fun coming up with the composition, and the initial playfulness played a huge role in leading to something great. “Lynne and I were sitting around with the idea of writing a song, and I was playing the keyboard, and I just happened to hit on that main riff, the intro of the song, and I think Jeff said something like, ‘That’s a really good riff but there’s one chord too many’,” he says.
Adding, “So I think I cut it back a chord and then, really just to amuse Jeff, honestly, I just sang that first verse. Then he starts laughing. Honestly, I thought I was just amusing Jeff, but then I got to the chorus of the song, and he leaned over to me and said the word, ‘freefalling’”.
Although Petty and Lynne started the material by playing around and learning what would work best, the true magic happened when they started experimenting with the key. “I took my voice up an octave or two, but I couldn’t get the whole word in,” Petty recalls. “So I sang ‘freeee,’ then ‘free falling.’ And we both knew at that moment that I’d hit on something pretty good. It was that fast. He had to go somewhere, and I wrote the last verse and kind of just polished the rest of the song and when I saw him the next day I played him the song and he was like, ‘Wow, you did that last night?’”.
This dynamic was precisely the reason why both worked together so well, even though the rest of the Heartbreakers weren’t too happy at the time at the idea of Petty going solo. In Lynne’s view, however, the whole album had a “fresh” feel that contributed largely to its success.
“It was Tom’s first solo album, and I didn’t realise it would be such a big thing for the band, Tom going off on his own,” Lynne admitted.
“I ended up doing most of the stuff, playing the keyboard and the bass and telling the drummer what to play. Mike [Campbell] was there, but I found out afterwards it was a problem for the other guys. The thing is, he got a great record out of it. It’s still my favourite record that I ever made with anybody. I love it. It’s so simple and fresh, and it’s got no bullshit.”
Looking back, ‘Free Fallin’’ perfectly captures the chemistry between Petty and Lynne at that moment in time. Lynne’s polished production gave Petty’s songwriting a brighter, more expansive sound without stripping away its laidback charm. More than three decades later, the song still stands as one of Petty’s most beloved recordings, a reminder that some of the greatest hits in rock history begin as nothing more than two musicians joking around with a riff in a room.
