“Hardly ever”: Tom Petty on the song he never wanted to play
For someone who had been in the game for as long as Tom Petty had, songs tended to mean something different when they had lived with them. Even though some songs might have a different meaning to every single listener that hears them, it’s easy for some artists to think back to when they were sitting in their bedroom, in a hotel room, or jamming at rehearsal when inspiration strikes them for the first time. That doesn’t always mean the replay value is high, and Petty felt that one particular song wasn’t something he wanted to revisit too often.
When looking at his body of work, almost an entire setlist could have been a greatest hits package whenever the Heartbreakers took to the stage. Even if the band performed for three hours at a time, that would still leave time left over for people to miss out on classics like ‘You Got Lucky’ or ‘Room at the Top’ in between him going through ‘Free Fallin’’ or ‘American Girl’ for what seems like the millionth time.
The live show is always a different beast from the studio, though. Despite Wildflowers being one of his best records, certain songs were never going to translate as well live thanks to the massive amount of overdubs on everything, like the orchestral build on ‘It’s Good to Be King’ or the elastic sense of timing going on in a song like ‘Wake Up Time’, which Petty would still do on occasion.
But if you told a casual Petty fan that he would sound like that in the 1970s, their heads might have exploded. You have to remember that Petty was only getting picked up on college radio at that point, and seeing him share the airwaves with artists like Sex Pistols and Elvis Costello wasn’t that far-fetched looking back on his contemporaries.
And a big part of what made him fit in were tunes like ‘Breakdown’. Petty might swear up and down that he borrowed the rhythmic structure from a Beatles song, there’s a nervy energy in the tune that scans much better as a laid-back punk song, especially when the guitars get dirtier in the chorus, and Petty puts a bit more gusto into telling off an old flame that played him for a fool and is bound to knock him on his ass.
While ‘Breakdown’ remained a strong part of the setlist, the heartland rocker felt that he no longer connected with the tune as much as the years went on, saying, “‘Breakdown’ I don’t want to play very often. I think because early in our career, we played it so much, I think I relate it to being 25. It doesn’t feel like a song I would sing now. That’s one we don’t play very much. Hardly ever.”
Petty has a point with it being a young man’s song, but having that kind of track in his back catalogue made him stand out amongst the next generation. Dave Grohl was always proud to play that style of song, and even if they half-drunkenly went through cover tunes, hearing The Replacements do their own unique take on the song is a good reminder that Petty was just as popular amongst punk rockers.
That kind of aggression may not have been something Petty embraced during the final half of his life, but that fire certainly never left him. The lyrics to ‘Breakdown’ may not have rang true as much, but listening to songs like ‘American Dream Plan B’ from his final album, Hypnotic Eye, he was still interested in seeing what it sounded like when he got a distorted guitar in his hands and started rocking out in his garage.
