All right. Here we go. I'll just edit in the later info and post updates when I do that.
1976 -- Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
General information: Was reportedly recorded in 15 days in the summer of 1976. Released in November 1976. Didn't hit the American charts until about a year later. One article claims (Im not so certain as there were other mistakes in it) that there were 15 songs recorded for it, but only 10 of them made it. Two of the outtakes were "Dog On The Run," (not to be confused with Dogs on The Run, on the Southern Accents album), which was a 10-minute jam they often did in early concerts. That one showed up on the Official Live Leg and is the only official release of the song (I wish they'd put it on the Live Anthology...) I was told this by a reputable source and it was too long for the album. The other song is a cover of a Slim Harpo song called "Scratch My Back." Petty said that in a 1977 Sounds interview. I dont know about the other 3 songs.
Rockin' Around (With You) |
Breakdown |
Hometown Blues |
The Wild One, Forever |
Anything That's Rock 'N' Roll |
Strangered In The Night |
Fooled Again (I Don't Like It) |
Mystery Man |
Luna |
American Girl
1. Rockin' Around (With You)
Appears on: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Pack Up The Plantation -- Live!
Hard to find information about this song. In Conversations, Petty says that he wrote the song based on a riff that Campbell had. The version on Pack Up The Plantation was from the '83 Long After Dark tour but I dont know how often they did this one in concert.
2. Breakdown
Appears on: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Pack Up The Plantation -- Live!, Greatest Hits, Playback (Disc 1), Anthology Through The Years, The Live Anthology (Disc 1)
In an August 1986 interview in Guitar Player, Petty said this: "The lick in 'Breakdown' -- I can't imagine that song without it. There's a story behind that. I wrote 'Breakdown' in the studio about 11 years ago, and the first version was seven minutes long, with this long guitar solo in the end. Everyone had gone home, and I was sitting there listening and in walks [singer] Dwight Twilley. Right in the fadeout of the song, Campbell plays [sings the song's melodic hook]. Twilley turns to me and says, 'That's the lick, man! How come he only plays it once at the end of the song? It's the whole hook.'I listened back, and he was right. So I called the band up -- 4:00 in the morning -- and told them to come back down. We did it again around the lick, took a couple takes, and there it was." In the Greatest Hits press release, Petty also says that Phil Seymour came up with the arrangement for the background vocals (on the album credits -- I found those online -- he is credited with backing vocals. I dont know if he actually sang on this song in specific).
In Conversations, Petty says that he wrote an extra verse for a Grace Jones, who wanted to cover the song but found it too short. A quick Google (leading to Wikipedia) says this is the extra verse (This was released in 1980):
It's OK if you must go
I'll understand if you don't
You say goodbye right now
I'll still survive somehow
Why should we let this drag on?
It was released as two singles. The Shelter 62006 one (1976) had The Wild One Forever as the B-Side. The Shelter 62008 from 1977 had Fooled Again (I Don't Like It). Ive not got cover art for either of them yet. This was the first Top 40 hit for the Heartbreakers in the U.S., although it didn't even debut in the Billboard charts until nearly a year (November 5, 1977) after the album was released!
This ones pretty much a live staple although it was dropped from the "Touring The Great Wide Open" tour (1991 - 1992). (
CORRECTION: They did do it at least once on that tour, on the October 26 1991 show in Gainesville.) In some 1982 shows (
CORRECTION: He also did it in at least one 1981 show. Its mentioned in a concert review) sometimes Petty would inject a few verses of "Hit The Road Jack" in the middle of the song, and often in the early days he would do what I call a "Pettyfit" where he basically strangles the microphone. He stopped doing this sometime in 1985 or 1986 though. This video shows a few examples:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BBWzBAbJng
Also this appeared on a really terrible 1978 movie about rock radio. It was called FM. Petty makes a cameo and they play this song; its also showed up on the soundtrack.
3. Hometown Blues
Appears on: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Playback (Disc 1), Anthology Through The Years
Not a Heartbreakers song
per se; in the Playback booklet Petty said that "That was the only carry over from Mudcrutch on the first album. I wrote 'Hometown Blues' in the last days of Mudcrutch, when I was staying at Leon Russell's house and started the record in Leon's home studio. I got Randall Marsh to play the drums. I was the engineer, knowing nothing about engineering. The rhythm track laid around for a while, then I presented it to the Heartbreakers. They liked it a lot but when we tried to cut it again I could never get the right swing from Stan and Ron. So I took that track and got Duck Dunn to play bass on it. He became a lifelong friend." Charlie Sousa, who was in Mudcrutch before it broke up, played a saxophone on this. Some guy called Lew Lewis did a cover of this that was released in England; in a February 1980 interview in Record Review, Petty called it a "real interesting cover."
4. The Wild One, Forever
Appears on: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Anthology Through the Years, The Live Anthology (Disc 3)
Not too much info about this song either; in Conversations, Petty says that this song was "written during a break in the studio, perhaps the same night that 'Breakdown' was written." In the credits, Ron Blair is credited with playing a cello; listen closely during the chorus. This has been played a few times live; it appears on the British version of the Official Live 'Leg (but not the American one) and was also played at both Hammersmith-Odeon in 1980 and the Fillmore in 1997. Although some people may wonder, Petty says in Conversations that this was
not influenced by Springsteen.
5. Anything That's Rock 'N' Roll
Appears on: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Greatest Hits [International Version], Playback (Disc 1)
In Playback Mike Campbell says "slyly" (WTH?) that "We pretty well had the album finished and we had this manager at the time who took us to see Kiss. We'd never seen Kiss. They were at their height, they had all the smoke bombs. We thought, 'Wow, this is great, all these people are coming to see this band and it's like the circus!' And they had that song, 'I wanna rock and roll all night and party every day.' I remember making a comment to Tom that 'All you have to do these days is put the words rock and roll in a song and it'll get on the radio.' The next day Tom came in with this song, 'Anything that's rock 'n' roll's fine.' I can't take credit for that, but I do remember saying it. Whether he heard me or not I don't know."
This song was released as a single in the UK (1977) with the Official Live 'Leg version of "Fooled Again" as the B-Side. It wasn't a single in the U.S. It appears on the international version of Greatest Hits. (I guess Canada is not regarded as international as my copy does not have that.)
They did this quite a bit live in the early days; they appeared to stop in the early '80s. In Conversations Petty says "That song's really naive; it's something I couldn't sing now. It's a kid singing that song.... It was like a Chuck Berry kind of thing, just a good rocking song."
6. Strangered In The Night
Appears on: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
This is also not a complete Heartbreakers song. A bit of history; after Mudcrutch but before the Heartbreakers Petty tried to embark on a solo album. It didn't work. This was one of the last songs of the solo career; in the album credits, Jim Gordon is credited with drums, Emory Gordy is credited with bass, and Dwight Twilley is credited with guitar. In Conversations, Petty mentions it twice. On page 47, he says "On the first [Heartbreakers] session we did, Stan Lynch didn't play. Jim Gordon played drums. We did 'Strangered In The Night,' which is on the first album." However, later on, on page 193, he says that Jim Gordon played the basic track and "that was the first session I brought The Heartbreakers down to. They were watching that go down, and they did the next song, and I overdubbed them onto ['Strangered In The Night']. And that's when I stopped being a solo artist."
This songs been done live a few times; mostly in the early days.
I personally think this is possibly the most violent Petty song in existence!
7. Fooled Again (I Don't Like It)
Appears on: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Not too much information on this song. In Conversations Petty said the Heartbreakers did this song in an old Warner's studio, and the strictness of the place (e.g. engineers were union and took a break every three hours) meant that they didn't stay there long. This song was done quite a bit in the early days; it appears on a May 1977 episode of Old Grey Whistle Test. (Thats a British TV show. I dont know much about it.) And in the live versions, often at the beginning Mike Campbell would do this guitar solo thing (I dont think this is the right term but I dont know a better way to describe that), and then the band slowly kicks in. Its a cool effect in my opinion.
8. Mystery Man
Appears on: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Also not much info on this. In Conversations, it says "we went in there for one night and we cut 'Mystery Man.' We cut it live, the vocal and everything," at A&M Studio, which used to be Charlie Chaplin's movie studio. They did do this song in shows, but Im not sure how often.
9. Luna
Appears on: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Petty found out that that Shelter was moving the gear out of Church Studio in Tulsa out to Hollywood; In Conversations, Petty says: "And Noah Shark, the Shelter producer [this is actually an error; he was an engineer] said, 'Hey, why don't you guys fly down and we'll cut a track before we take the gear out. Because no one's around and we can do it for free.' So Stan [Lynch] and I, just on a lark, flew to Tulsa. There was a tornado and we had to land and wait it out. And we had this bumpy plane ride to Tulsa." Once there, they found a practically empty studio. "But there was a Hammond organ and some drums. And I made that song up on the spot." They cut it with Petty on organ and Lynch on drums; they also added an Arp (Lynch played it, thus the credits for "keyboards". Im not too sure what an Arp is, though, but its the bendy string sound). They took it back to Hollywood to finish it up in Shelter Studios with the rest of the band. This one has been done live a few times; Ive seen it mainly on the early '76-'77 tours (there's a version of it on the Official Live 'Leg) and they brought it up again a few times in the 1980 world tour. Other than that Im not too sure. In the one video version Ive seen of this song live (Rock Goes To College, broadcast March 24 1980) Petty takes up the keyboards on it.
10. American Girl
Appears on: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Pack Up The Plantation -- Live!, Greatest Hits, Playback (Disc 1), Anthology Through The Years, The Live Anthology (Disc 3)
OK, so there's a sorta-hard-to-find documentary from late 1993 called "Tom Petty Going Home." It was made to coincide with the Greatest Hits release and aired on the Disney Channel. So anyways, in this documentary, they talk quite a bit about American Girl HOLY CRAP TOM MADE A CUTE FACE ... Im okay. So anyways they bring the old tapes up from the vault.
Its a common belief that there's a 12-string guitar on the track. There isn't. In that documentary they (Tom and Mike Campbell) actually played the seperate tracks to show that it was two six-strings. The drums were recorded on one track, and as Stan Lynch said in a 2008 interview (not the Modern Drummer one but another one) that "“The first hit record I ever played on was my sorry attempt to sound like [Bo Diddley]," and that "I remember literally Tommy was adamant when he wrote that - it’s Bo Diddley. He was playing the beat. Spazmo, me, I just launched before I even thought about it - play before you think. You play the first freaking thing that comes out of your butt. And then you think: Well, nobody’s yelling at me. It must be okay."
In the Playback booklet it says: "There is a famous story that Roger McGuinn of the Byrds was driving in his car, heard 'American Girl' for the first time, and thought it was something he had recorded and forgotten. When he realized it wasn't, he cut the song himself but could not convince his record label that it was a potential hit and should be released as a single." And another thing: The Byrds effect was not intended. In a 1977 interview, Petty says "So, I wrote 'American Girl' really fast on the piano on that Fourth of July, and it's just a song about this chick. I remember the night well; the air-conditioning broke down and it was really hot. That was the same night we took the photos for the album cover. Anyway, we did 'American Girl' all night long, and it never occurred to me that it sounded like the Byrds." That "ahhhhhh" thing at the end, that goes on for a long time. Tom calls it a "sustaining note" in the 1993 doc. Petty says that was triple-tracked and that "Phil Seymour did one".
This song is not about a girl who commited suicide at the University of Florida. It was written because Petty found the sound of the the the highway in Encino (where he lived at the time) "really annoying and we used to jokingly pretend it was the ocean." To be honest when I first heard the song I thought he was singing "microwaves crashing on the beach." Microwave shower!
This ones a concert staple. Ive never really seen it change too much.
One last note: In the Heartbreakers Beach Party documentry from 1983 Petty said he was "really pissed off" by the following cover because he didnt see the girl like that at HOLY CRAP THEYRE PLAYING HEARTBREAKERS BEACH PARTY THE SONG .....all.
This post shows that Aimee should not be watching-videos and posting.
