The biggest regret of Tom Petty’s career: “This is not who we are”
The late Tom Petty followed his gut at every stage of his career, and this attribute was a vital reason why he became a beloved voice of America. He was a unifying figure that people connected to sincerely due to his everyman relatability. As a result of his approach, Petty rarely looked back on his body of work with an ounce of regret.
While not every record Petty made sold a million copies or was successful, his heart was in the right place. Even when an album, such as his soundtrack for the movie She’s The One, didn’t meet his high standards, the singer-songwriter didn’t deeply regret it. Instead, he simply considered it a favour for his friend, director Edward Burns.
Rather than lose sleep about releasing an album that fell short of expectations, Petty acted like it didn’t exist and refused to listen to the LP. The project also operated as a reason to get back to work during a dark time following his divorce, and a portion of good came from the ordeal.
Of course, Petty was born to make music and was raised in the 1950s on a hearty diet of American rock ‘n’ roll. At age ten, he discovered his early dream of becoming a star after having the rare chance of meeting his first hero, Elvis Presley. In the summer of 1961, Petty’s uncle worked on the set of Presley’s film Follow That Dream in nearby Ocala and invited Petty to watch the shoot. After this brush with stardom, Petty had his first musical icon and traded his Wham-O slingshot for a collection of Elvis records.
Later, as a teenager in the 1960s, Petty was introduced to The Beatles during the band’s first performance on American television, which changed the trajectory of his life. “The minute I saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show – and it’s true of thousands of guys – there was the way out. There was the way to do it,” he once explained.
Petty continued: “You get your friends and you’re a self-contained unit. And you make the music. And it looked like so much fun. It was something I identified with. I had never been hugely into sports. I had been a big fan of Elvis. But I really saw in the Beatles that here’s something I could do. I knew I could do it. It wasn’t long before there were groups springing up in garages all over the place.”
After this pivotal moment, Petty, aged 17, decided to drop out of high school and form a band. Following a decade of developing his talent as a guitarist and vocalist, Petty finally broke through to global consciousness with his band, the Heartbreakers. His success burgeoned into the 1980s as he became revered by some of his idols and ultimately found himself in the Travelling Wilburys alongside Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, Jeff Lynne and George Harrison.
Naturally, having lived his wildest dream, Petty had very few regrets prior to his death in 2017, aged 66. However, during an interview with Rolling Stone, the rock star picked out one remarkably enduring regret of his career, which he’d have rewritten if given the opportunity.
This rare faux-pas occurred in 1985 and relates to his sixth studio album with the Heartbreakers, Southern Accents. Notably, the LP featured songs such as ‘Rebels’, ‘Don’t Come Around Here No More’, and ‘Mary’s New Car’. Following its release, while touring in support of the album, Petty controversially displayed a Confederate flag on stage, a decision he very soon came to regret.
The battle flag, initially used in the 19th century for the Southern Confederate party during the American Civil War, has since become a symbol associated with white supremacists and Southern patriot activism. After Dylann Roof murdered nine African-American churchgoers in 2015, Petty told Rolling Stone that he wished he’d never used the hate symbol. “I wish I had given it more thought,” he said. “It was a downright stupid thing to do.”
“The Confederate flag was the wallpaper of the south when I was a kid growing up,” Petty added, offering an explanation for his use of the flag. “I always knew it had to do with the Civil War, but the south had adopted it as its logo. I was pretty ignorant of what it actually meant. It was on a flagpole in front of the courthouse, and I often saw it in western movies. I just honestly didn’t give it much thought, though I should have.”
Petty’s regret for using the flag was realised much earlier than in 2015, however. The first track on Southern Accents, ‘Rebels’, is about Southern American tradition. Petty explained to Rolling Stone that consequently, “the Confederate flag became part of the marketing for the tour,” adding that he “regretted it pretty quickly”.
During a later tour, a member of the audience threw a Confederate flag onto the stage. Whether it was in protest or endorsement of Petty’s assumed southern patriotism is unclear, but Petty felt the need to clear the air at this juncture. “Look, this was to illustrate a character,” he remembered saying onstage. “This is not who we are. Having gone through this, I would prefer it if no one would ever bring a Confederate flag to our shows again because this isn’t who we are.”
Concluding the discussion with Rolling Stone, Petty added a final thought on the ambiguity surrounding the flag’s symbolism. “That southern pride gets transferred from generation to generation. I’m sure that a lot of people that applaud it don’t mean it in a racial way. But again, I have to give them, as I do myself, a ‘stupid’ mark. If you think a bit longer, there’s bad connotations to this. They might have it at the football game or whatever, but they also have it at Klan rallies. If that’s part of it in any way, it doesn’t belong, in any way, representing the United States of America.”
When Petty brought the Confederate flag on stage with him during the 1980s, he didn’t intend to cause division and wanted to play an innocent nod to his upbringing. However, much to his regret, it was a misjudged decision that backfired spectacularly. Rather than act defensively, Petty held his hands up, swallowed his pride and courageously owned the mistake.
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