The Tom Petty track he called “one of the best songs I ever wrote”
Tom Petty would never put anything out that was below his usual standard. Although there were certainly times when his music tended to become generic compared to his early work, he never felt the need to play the bottom line throughout his career, creating songs that anyone could relate to no matter what predicament they found themselves in. While the making of the band’s album Southern Accents would turn into a miniature nightmare, Petty did get one of his greatest songs out of the deal.
When working on the album, Petty originally had the idea of painting abroad picture of the American South, crafting songs that were about the ordinary folks working in the fields every day. Although the idea seemed to work on paper, everything came to a head when the group decided to produce the album themselves.
Working as a self-contained entity, the band quickly became frazzled, becoming strung out on cocaine throughout the majority of the sessions. Bringing back producer Jimmy Iovine, Petty was quickly persuaded to turn the whole album into an excellent single album rather than the double album experience that was initially intended.
Although the record would hold together, the conceptual part would be thrown out the window. Working with artists like Dave Stewart of Eurythmics, Petty would come up with some of the greatest songs that he would ever write, including the massive hit ‘Don’t Come Around Here No More’, which was initially slated for Stevie Nicks.
Even though Petty had mixed feelings about how the record was made, he was immensely proud of how the song ‘The Best of Everything’ came together. Rather than work on it together, Petty gave the song tapes to Robbie Robertson, who planned to use it for the movie King of Comedy.
After a fallout with management, the song was relegated to the end of Petty’s album. Then again, Petty was already ecstatic about what Robertson had done with it, telling Paul Zollo, “It might be one of the best songs I ever wrote. It’s a really good song, and he really did it justice. I’m still quite proud of that song”.
Framed as a narrative, the song could have brought the intended concept album to a close had the band had time to work on it. Reminiscing on a girl he left behind, the song’s narrator just hopes that the woman has found peace wherever she is, saying that he hopes that she found whatever she was looking for along the way.
While Petty may have written the final version of the song, the real power came from what Robertson brought in to enhance the tune. Instead of the traditional Heartbreakers guitar sound, the delicate sounds of horns brought a heightened sense of drama to the tune, as if the character is stepping back in time to see what he could have done differently with his lover.
Outside of the lavish production, the heart of Petty’s song makes it more significant than anything else, putting an ordinary story into an operatic lens. While a song this big would usually be over the top, ‘The Best of Everything’ is one of the few tracks that earns its bombastic production.
