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Tom Petty’s debut with the Heartbreakers would launch a forty-one year recording career for the Florida native known as Tom Petty. Said debut would introduce a holding pattern which Petty would refine for the next few albums with the Heartbreakers: a few singles which would remain concert staples and quite a few cuts of entertaining songs surrounding it for an album. That’s a decidedly old-school approach utilized successfully by artists such as Credence Clearwater Revival (before they imploded) prior to Tom Petty. In the case of the self-titled debut, there were two songs that remained concert staples up-to-and-including the final tours of the Heartbreakers: their first single “Breakdown” and the classic closing-track “American Girl.”
As for the personnel which comprised Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers at this point, the long-term regulars who would form the permanent backbone of the band were Tom himself on vocals and guitar, Mike Campbell (an underrated guitarist who is currently on-tour with Fleetwood Mac replacing Lindsey Buckingham) on guitar, and Benmont Tench on keyboards. Meanwhile, bassist Ron Blair would last from 1976-1982 and return in 2002 and last until Tom’s death in 2017. Finally, the original drummer Stan Lynch remained the regular drummer until leaving in 1994, citing musical and personal differences with Tom.
Regarding the general musical climate of the times, the group’s hybrid of the jangly guitar of the Byrds and the lumbering grooves of the Rolling Stones made them outliers from the punk and new-wave scenes of the time. And that’s true stylistically—no one familiar with Tom Petty would expect him to sound anything like Blondie, the Sex Pistols, or the Talking Heads. Instead, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers offers the no-frills attitude of punk but with a celebration of tradition as opposed to the drastic break represented by punk rock. However, that traditionalist attitude shouldn’t be mistaken for artistic conservatism—Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers loved to color their rootsy style with tinges of other genres (such as psychedelic rock, Southern rock, and new-wave) while remaining true to themselves. Additionally, they were among a handful of old-school rock-&-rollers who opted to embrace the then-burgeoning format of MTV in the 80’s, a move which likely sustained his popularity well into the 1990’s.
“Rockin’ Around (With You)” (2:29)
Musically speaking, “Rockin’ Around (With You) acts as a simple homage to the blues-based roots of the Heartbreakers sound. That much is clear from the basic pounding beats from Stan Lynch. Yet this isn’t 100% blues, something ascertainable the instant that Mike and Tom’s guitars enter the fray and inject elements of rock and folk into the brew. The whole thing feels light yet energetic—two qualities that remain hallmarks of the Heartbreakers sound regardless of tempo or stylistic deviation. That all this comes before Tom’s iconic nasal, Florida-drawl-inflected vocals soar over the mix speaks volumes about Tom’s backing band being oft-overlooked musicians in their own right. Sure, they (with the possible exception of Mike) aren’t virtuosos at their instruments, but they have a quality akin to Ringo Starr or the backing band of Frank Sinatra: dependability.
As for lyrics, this one doesn’t exactly take Hawking levels of intelligence to figure out. Simply put, it’s about sex. How else can one read “And I can’t stop thinkin’ ‘bout/How I dig rockin’ round with you?” as a couple of lines? That Tom tacks on the word “babe” to the end of the third line doesn’t exactly make this one subtle, either. Although the subject matter does place it further within the tired-and-true traditions of rock ‘n’ roll and the blues, of which “Rockin’ Around (With You)” has traces of both.
“Breakdown” (2:43)
If the blues-based influences weren’t loud-and-clear by now, the shuffling drums and light keyboard chords at the start of “Breakdown” should do the trick. Throw in the relaxed tempo and Mike’s flourishes of light lead guitar and this is about as bluesy as rock ‘n’ roll can get without delving into full-on revivalism. Where rock ‘n’ roll factors into things comes from two things. First, there’s the detail that Tom’s usual vocal delivery differing from the ‘rough-and-rugged’ quality of male blues vocalists (look at Howlin’ Wolf and Stevie Ray Vaughan for two examples). Secondly, the hard-rock swagger of the chorus owes a far greater debt to the Stones than any blues band. But the shared musical DNA between rock and the blues makes the transition appear seamless instead of jarring.
While the title would lead one to believe that the song’s about a nervous breakdown, “Breakdown” really covers the subject of opening up to someone. At least by-proxy—having someone open up to you. There’s some details which reinforce this: the semi-cocky way which Tom ends the first quartet of lines with “I get the feeling you won’t” and following it up with “There is no sense in pretending/Your eyes give you away.”
Out-of-context, those two examples appear threatening. In which case, one should consider the song’s first two lines: “It’s alright if you love me/It’s alright if you don’t.” Here, Tom plays the ‘sensitive nice guy’ with such conviction that you’re inclined to believe him even if you think that trope is bullshit and manipulative. And you believe Tom here because that conviction leads a listener to think “He’s not going to hurt anyone, so this woman’s got nothing to lose here.”
“Hometown Blues” (2:14)
Evidently, “Hometown Blues” has its origins in Tom’s pre-Heartbreakers band, Mudcrutch (which reunited in the 2000’s). This does make it one of Tom’s oldest songs, but that doesn’t mean it’s too different form the previous two stylistically. Has a swung, CCR-esque feel in the guitar-work, but I can also hear an inkling of the twelve-bar-blues structure—albeit a variant of it where one revolution of the cycle comprises the verse and chorus. Not really much to talk about since it’s simple, but effective.
There’s some shared thematic tissue between the lyrics of “Hometown Blues” and that of “Breakdown,” which likely serves as the reason for their back-to-back placement on the album. In a nutshell, the chorus of “Don’t really matter/If she don’t or if she do./Tryin’ to make the best of/The hometown blues” is the crux of the song’s easy-going theme. That theme boils down to ‘live in the moment, savor it as it happens, but don’t make a big deal about it when it’s gone.’ Essentially, “Hometown Blues” acts as a feel-good song celebrating the here-and-now.
“The Wild One, Forever” (3:03)
For music’s sake, “The Wild One, Forever” marks a subtle break from the blues and an embrace into a more folksy tones. But it still maintains the energy of a slow-moving rock song throughout, creating an example of the Heartbreakers sound. The delicate-yet-tough guitar lines, sinewy bass, deft drum fills, and the usual vocals from Tom essentially crystallize the band’s sound here.
In lyrical terms, “The Wild One, Forever” depicts heartbreak via a chorus which contains twelve lines and verses with only four. But in that fickle span of time, the speaker recounts a romantic (“When you finally held me” and “When you finally kissed me” in the first and second chorus, respectively) encounter with a so-called ‘bad woman.’ We’re told she has this ‘bad woman’ status from the lines “They call you the wild one/Said, “stay away from her”/Said, “she could love no one if she tried,”” which—in this day and age—leave one skeptical whether or not she’s truly ‘wild’ or if it’s slander from a jilted lover(s). However, the second chorus’s last four lines (“Baby, those few hours/Will grow in my head/Forever/And ever” make it clear that the woman’s not one that’s ready to settle down. Therefore the ‘bad woman’ status.
But there’s also another dimension to this song which hides under the surface. It first caught my attention whenever I saw the phrase “those few hours” in the chorus and went ‘No kisses take an hour or more.’ And then it hit me that sex is involved in this song, but it’s not as blatant about it as “Rockin’ Around (With You).” In this context, the line “When you finally held me” reflects post-coital cuddling. Additionally, the lines “When the strangest feeling came over me/Down inside” can refer to the speaker having an erection. So yeah, the song is an oblique reminiscence of a one-night-stand.
“Anything That’s Rock ‘n’ Roll” (2:24)
If one were to call “Anything That’s Rock ‘n’ Roll” ‘garage rock,’ they probably wouldn’t be far off from the truth. Whether it’s the twelve-bar-blues chord formation, the rhythm reminiscent of Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s “Takin’ Care of Business,” or just the looseness of the sound, this song comes across as the first ‘filler’ cut on the album.
This one’s—like “Rockin’ Around (With You)”—isn’t worth working one’s brain up in a tizzy over. Although it’s one of the three ‘sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll’ chestnuts, “Anything That’s Rock ‘n’ Roll” isn’t concerned with sex like “Rockin’ Around (With You)” or “The Wild One, Forever.” Instead (as the title implies), this one’s an ol’-fashioned ‘rock as rebellion’ song.
“Strangered In The Night” (3:34)
Like “Hometown Blues,” “Strangered In The Night” technically doesn’t qualify as a Heartbreakers song. In this case, it wasn’t a Mudcrutch track, but a song from a failed bid at an early solo album for Tom. That leaves just Mike and Tom as the two members who play on every song on the album. As for bass, a famous session musician named Emory Gordy (notable for playing with Elvis in his later years and on Gram Parsons’s Grievous Angel) was able to establish the Heartbreakers just in-time for the recording sessions for the rest of the album. In fact, “Strangered In The Night” was the last song that was finished prior to the official formation of the Heartbreakers, giving the song special importance in Tom’s history.
But another session legend manned the drumkit: Jim Gordon, who had a formidable playing resume which included seminal albums from the Beach Boys, George Harrison, Joe Cocker, Traffic, Derek and the Dominos, and Steely Dan before he even joined the session. Despite Tom having the chance to play with “one of the greatest drummers ever, I think,” Gordon’s life isn’t a pick-me-up. For all the talent he possessed before his demons dismantled him, Gordon was an undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenic who fatally stabbed his mother in 1983, earning him a 16 years-to-life sentence and rendering him institutionalized, where he remains to this day.
What “Strangered In The Night” sounds like musically teeters on the knife-edge between playful and menacing. The crux of which owes a debt to the twin-guitar main riff of Mike and Tom weaving in-and-out of each other. This—plus Jim and Emory’s steady rhythm section—provides the backbone for Tom to glide effortlessly over the song via the lyrics.
At first glance, “Strangered In The Night” looks like an old-west cowboy fantasy—something further supported by the antiquated use of “queer” to mean ‘strange’ in the first verse. But that first verse is a prelude to a rather problematic song from Tom. My view on calling things out has been that if the artist is worthy of respect at times, that same artist shouldn’t be immune from criticism if criticism is warranted. Even that isn’t guaranteed if it’s uncertain whether the criticism is deserved or not due to ambiguity in the lyrics.
Because in the instance of “Strangered In The Night” (one of the most violent sets of lyrics in Tom’s catalogue if not the most), the lyrical content and message appears at-odds with the wording of specific lines. Simply put, the song’s essentially ‘Django Unchained’ in music form—runaway slave (after freedom) runs back to his former owner to blow the guy’s head off with a shotgun (“the white man’s head exploded”), but not before the slaveowner threw a knife at the runaway slave (“black guy howled in pain”). Given the horrors of slavery and the facts available regarding said horrors, the runaway slave’s vengeance is understandable and (arguably) justified.
That’s not saying that “Strangered In The Night” isn’t unproblematic. The issue comes from two specific lines of lyrics and from the perspective. Here, the perspective’s the easier of the two: it’s either a just-the-facts reporting of events or an onlooker who’s indifferent to the whole thing. Either one can reflect one thing of Tom: an uncertainty on how to go about tackling the song’s subject matter, which reflects naïveté (Tom was 26 at the point of the album’s release) as much as it does ignorance (his birthplace of Gainesville, Florida is in the south) instead of malice (for reasons that are addressed later).
Specific lyrical passages that appear to undermine the anti-racist scenario of the song include the first description of the runaway slave (“this crazy black guy/With a demon in his eyes”) and the end of the last verse, a woman’s scream of ““God damn, you old black bastard/You’ve blown away my dreams!”” In regards to the notion that the black guy’s “crazy,” that’s suggesting that the onlooker holds bigoted viewpoints or that the societal order supporting slavery remains so messed up that the black man’s action’s (to which the “demon” marks the lust for revenge) appears crazy.
But the woman’s scream of “God damn, you old black bastard/You’ve blown away my dreams” carries a whole host of meaning. First, the phrase itself emits an unconscious reply of bigotry from the white woman whose husband just had his head blown off. Second, “blown away my dreams” reflects the systemic sexism of the time period (regardless of whether this song takes place before or during the Civil War). Third, “bastard” may hold some truth considering the lack of knowledge on the runaway slave’s parents—for all we know, he could be the product of the slaveowner raping and impregnating a slave, making it so he just killed his father. However, “old” throws a potential wrinkle into this given that there’s no other evidence pointing towards the ages of slaveowner or the runaway slave. The results of all the things left in the air is that of confusion.
All this goes to say that even if Tom wrote this one song that can be interpreted with problematic racial overtones, there’s little else about Tom that suggests racial intolerance. In fact, there’s more evidence pointing towards the opposite. First, there’s the fact that Steve Ferrone, the second (and final) drummer for the Heartbreakers (from 1994 until 2017) is black. Secondly, there’s the musical heritage of rock-n-roll and the blues detailed in artists that Tom performed cover versions of, which includes Chuck Berry, James Brown, Muddy Waters, Wilson Pickett, and Bo Diddly—the last of which was also brought onstage to perform with the Heartbreakers at San Francisco’s Fillmore in 1997. Thirdly, Tom was—if nothing else—pretty outspoken on the debt black artists had on the music of himself and countless others.
Perhaps most the most telling example of Tom’s anti-racist stance comes from an occasion where he owned up to an error in judgement. In 1985, Tom’s album Southern Accents was released—an album whose opening track “Rebels” is told from the viewpoint of a young ignorant southerner raised in the aftermath of the Civil War and believes in the credo of ‘the way it’s always been is the way it should stay.’ At the time (while on-tour promoting the album), Tom—being brought up not to think of the negative connotations of this (saying that growing up in Florida, he saw it as “the wallpaper of the South”)—thought it’d be a bright idea to display a Confederate flag on-stage whenever “Rebels” was played in order to demonstrate the character’s ignorance. Then it backfired once audiences began toting Confederate flags in the crowd—one going so far as to toss one on the stage while Tom was playing. To that, he stopped playing mid-show and gave a long speech demonizing the flag and encouraging that no one bring a Confederate flag to a concert—while also taking down the on-stage flag. In later years, Tom would say that, in hindsight, toting the Confederate flag to begin with was a “stupid” thing to do—especially once coming to see a Confederate flag on flagpoles akin to “how a swastika looks to a Jewish person.” Tom himself would reflect on the whole thing in the wake of the 2015 Confederate flag controversy, stating “When they [southerners] wave that flag, they aren’t stopping to think how it looks to a black person. I blame myself for not doing that. I should have gone around the fence and taken a good look at it.”
Do I think that “Strangered In The Night” carries some problematic connotations regarding race? Yes. However, I think those problematic elements are more a result of Tom putting his foot in his mouth than deliberate malice. Mostly because the evidence of Tom being anti-racist outweighs the sting of overt racism in this instance.
“Fooled Again (I Don’t Like It)” (3:50)
In some respects, “Fooled Again (I Don’t Like It) constitutes as the one track on the album where Tom’ and company showcase genuine venom. Here, there’s the relaxed tempo of “Breakdown,” the restrained menace of “Strangered In The Night,” and the garage-rock inclinations of “Anything That’s Rock ‘n’ Roll” rolled into one—all from the opening chords. And this gives the song a veneer of nastiness that’s only as prominent on “Strangered In The Night.”
Tom’s nasty bite isn’t exclusive to the music. Instead, the primary evidence remains embedded within the lyrics. Beginning with “Strange voice on the telephone/Tellin’ me I better leave you ‘lone,” it’s clear that the speaker’s girlfriend is a two-timer who has a boyfriend (the “Strange voice”) already. This detail—when combined with the line “Looks like I’m the fool again” from the chorus—clues a listener in that the girlfriend didn’t tell the speaker that she was already with someone…and that this has happened to the speaker before. In that sense, it’s the inverse of Marvin Gaye’s classic “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” or a non-married variant of “Me and Mrs. Jones” in terms of subject-matter.
Where spite rears its ugly head comes from each of the four lines of the post-chorus. The first (“You never said you had no number two.”) implies that the cheating was facilitated by a lack of communication and a lie of omission on her part. But as of the second line (“I need to know ‘bout it if you do”), it can’t be of omission anymore since the speaker wants answers after that phone-call. Now there’s a sense from line number three (“If two is one, I might as well be three”) that the speaker feels like a third-wheel—especially considering the notion that two people make up one relationship. Finally, the fourth line (“It’s good to see you think so much of me”) registers most of the nastiness since it’s a biting tell-off.
Such spiteful connotations like this that makes me think ‘Polyamory wouldn’t be a bad idea for some relationships’ even if it’s not necessarily something that floats my boat. But that’s an idea that’s gaining ground in 2018—it’d be unheard of in 1976.
“Mystery Man” (3:03)
Probably too saccharine for its own good, “Mystery Man” is probably the second track I’d call a ‘filler’ cut. Just about the one thing I recall as memorable from this being one part of the guitar line which reminds me of the type of scales Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead played on guitar—making me reach for a better song than this. Even when you’re Tom Petty, not everything you write can be a winner—maybe a higher batting average than usual, but not perfect.
“Mystery Man” doesn’t have much to offer lyrically, but it’s about a guy courting a woman. Although the juxtaposition of “Honey you’re so cruel/I don’t mind, take my hand” does seem striking, it’s defused a tad by the next line of “Baby, I wanna be your mystery man.”
“Luna” (3:58)
Immediately opening with a drum fill from Steve before segueing into organ from Benmont, “Luna” feels unlike any other song on the entire album simply due to how Benmont dominates the sound. Even when Ron’s bass fills up a fat-sounding pulse, Benmont remains the first thing one is likely to hear. The effect makes this for one of the prettiest-sounding songs on the album.
On a basic level, the lyrics to “Luna” act as an imagistic personification of the moon—the name of the song and lines such as “Black and yellow pools of light” and “White light cut a scar in the sky” are dead-giveaways. Only this time, it’s a woman who’s enraptured the speaker’s attention. Come to think of it, the song doesn’t use any pronouns apart from “I,” “me,” and “my”—all of which pertain the speaker. That goes to say that because of the lack of any gender-based pronouns, this song can just as easily be sung by a woman to a woman, or a man to another man as from a man to a woman.
“American Girl” (3:34)
Out of all the songs on the self-titled debut, no song comes close to the iconic status of “American Girl,” easily one of Tom’s most-recognizable songs and one that everyone has likely heard at least once whether they know it or not. It’s also the song where the influence of the Byrds holds the largest sway. That influence is so worn on this song’s sleeve that when Roger McGuinn (guitarist for the Byrds) heard “American Girl” for the first time, he thought the classic jangly guitar line was something he’d written and that Tom had either stolen or recorded a cover version of. Turns out it’s neither and that it’s a Tom Petty original (although it makes it kinda amusing that Roger later did a cover version), but the point stands that “American Girl” remains a prime example of how Tom acknowledged his musical influences while creating something new in the process—setting the template for most of Tom’s hits to follow.
Regarding the song itself, where to begin? First, there’s the opening riff that achieves its effect entirely upon the breakneck rhythm—since it’s based primarily upon one chord. That high-energy beginning makes it all-the-more striking when the verses largely dispense with guitar apart from scattered notes—at least at first. A hint of things to come is present right from the start of Tom’s smoothly-delivered verses: the rhythm section operates unabated. In this regard, it makes sense for Tom and Mike’s guitar work to start slowly returning to prominence throughout a verse-chorus set until the choruses allow some blues-based flourishes from one of them (probably Mike). Following the second chorus, there’s the funk-inflected bridge where Benmont gets his moment to shine via a piano solo before the song returns to the now-familiar riff for a protracted build-up. At the end, Mike unleashes a flurry of descending triplets in a guitar solo that ends the song (and the album) on an energized note. No wonder all of Tom’s shows—including his very last concert—ended with this song.
As far as lyrics go, “American Girl” also proves striking—although not-so-much as “Strangered In The Night” was. First off, I’ll mention that Tom himself said the urban legend about this song being about a suicide (facilitated by the balcony mentioned in the second verse supposedly belonging to a building in Gainesville) is false. Normally, I’m more willing to go with Roland Barthes’s ‘Death of the Author’ and find meaning of a song for myself, but Tom’s technically right on this one—it involves a woman contemplating jumping from a tall building, but not going through with it. On the topic of why she doesn’t go through with it, it’s probably a promise (mentioned in the first verse) to a lover—likely the same one that the chorus recalls having sex with (which explains “Oh yeah, all right/Take it easy, baby/Make it last all night” as bedroom talk). Some have suggested the promise was to a family member, but the suggestive quality of the chorus renders makes that possible only with those okay with that taboo or those with a sick imagination—and part of me is inclined to believe that Tom Petty wasn’t the former and only partially the latter.
So the meat-and-potatoes of analysis lies in the second verse. On their own, lines two through four (“She stood alone on her balcony/Yeah, she could hear the cars roll by/Out on 441” tap into a massive coincidence—U.S. Route 441 is right alongside a (balcony-less) residence hall at the University of Florida in Gainesville that was opened in 1967, when Tom was seventeen. There is a clear roof in the photo to the right, so the possibility of contemplation matters more than the logistics in this case.
The end of the second verse (”And for one desperate moment there/He crept back in her memory./God, it’s so painful/Something that’s so close/And still so far out of reach.”) warrants breaking down. First, there’s the “desperate moment” functioning as the contemplation of suicide. Then, there’s “He crept back in her memory” serving as the instant that the American Girl recalls the promise from the first verse. But the last, most curious detail arrives at the ending two lines (“Something that’s so close/And still so far out of reach”), where the listener learns why the American Girl contemplated suicide in the first place—it seemed like there wasn’t a way to fulfill the promise. That juxtaposition of “so close” and “so far” in back-to-back lines implies that the promise (which isn’t specified) involves something that doesn’t have an ending.
Final Thoughts:
Tom’s recording career began with a pretty good foot in the door. This is simple, no-hold-barred, effective rock-n-roll—nothing more, nothing less. I may be a bigger fan of more complicated song-structures (looks at prog and Steven Wilson) or more abstract lyrics (Bob Dylan springs to mind), but there’s nothing wrong with good ol’ unpretentious rock every now-and-again. Tom just happened to do that like a charm in the most unassuming manner.
Definite album highlights for me are “Breakdown,” “The Wild One, Forever,” “Strangered In The Night,” and “American Girl.”
So the two major singles (“Breakdown,” “American Girl”) and two lesser-known songs that are no slouches.