Tom Petty on the most focused album he ever made: “I was able to take a lyrical idea and follow it”
Any songwriter always dreams of being someone who makes more than the occasional catchy tune. No, the real professionals are those that can tell a story within the span of a few minutes, and while Tom Petty could be a masterful writer during his prime, it wasn’t until years in the business he really hit his stride.
But the only reason Petty was able to make classics like ‘The Waiting’ or ‘Wildflowers’ was because he put in the miles with his writing. He had countless tunes that he had all the way back from his Mudcrutch days, but once he knew a thing or two about how the business worked, it was much better for him to go back to songs like ‘Don’t Do Me Like That’ and see how they could compare next to classics like ‘Refugee’ and ‘Here Comes My Girl’.
Right after Damn the Torpedoes ended, though, Petty went into a bit of a strange period with his records. Hard Promises was a dark companion to his masterpiece, but when looking at the songs, there isn’t one specific theme most of the time. The characters in ‘Something Big’ are into something completely different than the kid who made a few mad decisions on ‘Insider’, but it still worked as a collection of songs.
Even when Petty tried his best to make a concept record on Southern Accents, everything seemed to fall through. The cocaine and the time off for his broken hand probably didn’t help matters, but while songs like ‘Don’t Come Around Here No More’ sounded great in the context of the record, it’s hard to say that the whole album revolves around the tale of the American South when you start hearing sitars thrown into the mix.
As it turned out, all Petty needed to do was have the right person in front of him to work with. Mike Campbell was always his right-hand man when it came to finding the right chord progressions, but after taking a few lessons from his Wilburys bandmates, Jeff Lynne took the basis of Petty’s work and gave it a major makeover on Full Moon Fever. And while that was a great proof of concept, a lot of the best stuff would come one album later on Into the Great Wide Open.
At this point, Petty finally seemed to be content, and that led to a record that felt like the most cohesive work he had made, saying, “I was able to take a lyrical idea and follow it through from beginning to end on this album, which has been so hard for me in the past. When I did Southern Accents I came so close, but I didn’t stay on the road. This one I felt like I kept on the road all the way through.” And when looking at the characters in every tune, Petty had one theme around them: escape
The kids in ‘King’s Highway’ and the spectators in ‘Two Gunslingers’ aren’t all looking for the same thing, but by the time the song is over, they at least have a little bit of perspective on where they want their lives to go. Judging by songs like ‘All the Wrong Reasons’, they might be in for a rocky start, but when everything winds down on ‘Built to Last’, they’re all at least happy to be surviving through whatever is bringing them down.
And looking at every album Petty made after Into the Great Wide Open, he never lost that sense of lyrical continuity, either. The Last DJ, Highway Companion, and Echo are very distinct albums, and while they might not all be Petty’s personal favourite records to make, they at least had some depth to them that he couldn’t have done when he was a kid.
