“That’s what I feel”: Tom Petty’s favourite Bob Dylan lyric
Part of, or perhaps even the whole reason, music is so powerful is the personal impact that words written and sung by a person can have. Art in all its various forms serves as a necessary reminder that we’re not alone, that no man is an island. It provides a beautiful moment of connection when we hear or see another person articulate a deeply held feeling and find belonging in the reliability, and Tom Petty knew that well.
People often make the mistake of thinking that relatability can only come through in broad and non-specific songs, that something being niche or personal stops it from being universal, when actually, it’s quite the opposite. The beauty of humans lies in our ability to find understanding in anything. An artist should never underestimate just how far empathy can stretch.
Petty was never a writer of those kinds of loose, broad songs. Instead, he loved that powerful specificity, writing scenes and stories that were specific but still left space for his audiences to connect. It was a skill he loved in his peers, too, in his Traveling Wilburys bandmates, and especially in Bob Dylan.
Bob Dylan has built a whole career on niche specificity. Especially in his early folk days, Dylan’s songs were often a complex web that demanded a bit of untangling. His lyrics needed a moment to come through, sometimes requiring a literary mind and careful eye to unpack what he might mean in a certain metaphor or with a particular coded image.
‘It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)’ is one of those songs. People are still chewing on it, trying to figure out precisely what Dylan meant with the strange, surrealist images involved. But, as a perfect example of how people always find some way to connect, it’s a song that houses Petty’s favourite Dylan lyric, which he deeply resonated with.
As a clear diamond amongst the gems of imagery, Petty heard the line, “I got nothing, Ma, to live up to.” In the context of the song, it might be more of a message of hopelessness. For Petty, it was a message of freedom.
“I’ve proved everything to myself,” Petty said in 1980, reflecting on where he was in his career. Which is when the line of the song came to him, as he said, “One of my favourite Dylan lines is, ‘I’ve got nothing to live up to’, and that’s what I feel.” In his world, at that moment, the line reflected his feelings of satisfaction and success, as he continued, “I don’t have to prove it to anyone else”.
Isn’t that the point of it all? The way music and words can mean different things to different people, reflecting their lives variously, depending on the specific and personal context of the listener. There is something beautiful in Petty finding light in Dylan’s darkness, finding a moment of sincerity to connect with, even in a track that is largely cynical. Clearly, though, at that moment, in the mood of celebration that Petty was in about his own achievements, those words hit him differently, proving that even the specific and niche can be wide open and broadly resonant.
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