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Tom Petty, dead at 66

Started by cflnut, October 02, 2017, 04:14:37 PM

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cflnut

If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense.
Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't.
And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would.

rollntider




TheNorm

Okay...odds are you've all seen lots said and written about Tom Petty over the last couple of days (and no doubt more eloquently), but I have to give it a shot too. So here goes...

I took Tom Petty for granted. Let me explain: I enjoyed his stuff, but he was never one of the first artists I'd mention whenever someone asked me who my favorite artists were. I'd name off a few that I had been enjoying at the particular time, and then inevitably someone else would mention him and I'd say "oh yeah! He's great too," and then move on.

Growing up, my first introduction to him that I remembered was the sweet Alice in Wonderland themed video for "Don't Come Around Here No More".

I didn't like the song at first, but like many back in the day, once I saw the video (and who didn't? MTV played it all the time) the song grew on me. Full Moon Fever, his first solo album, spawned a whole bunch of favorites for me: "I Won't Back Down" was the first single, and it was easily something one could relate to, even for a kid like me (at the time) that was heavily into Michael & Janet Jackson, and a lot of rap. Look at all the legends in this video too.

We were all singing along to "Free Fallin'" long before Tom Cruise did it in the movies. I loved "Runnin' Down a Dream" from the moment I first heard it played.
The knack for telling stories in his videos continued with "Into the Great Wide Open" and "Mary Jane's Last Dance". Oddly enough, I didn't get an introduction to much of his stuff prior to "Don't Come Around Here No More" until I picked up the Greatest Hits album that "Mary Jane's Last Dance" was released on. "Refugee", "You Got Lucky", "Don't Do Me Like That"...and "American Girl", which once I heard it gave me the moment that reminded me of Silence of the Lambs, the song the girl was singing along to before Wild Bill abducted her. Strange connection, but it stuck.
As my tastes matured, so did his it seemed. One of my favorite movies from the 90's was something called She's the One, and Petty crafted that soundtrack as well. While I'm not sure I could sit through the film now (different time, and tastes tend to change over time), the soundtrack still holds its own. I guess that's ultimately what I'm trying to say: his music has low-key been there through my formative and adult years, serving as a soundtrack of sorts...not just for me, but for any of us that really enjoyed his work.

I thought he'd be cool to see live someday, but I took him for granted in the sense that I always kind of thought he'd be around forever (just like I did with The Eagles & Glenn Frey, Chris Cornell & Soundgarden, etc.). There's always more time, I thought...until there isn't.
Damn, what a loss. Thank you for the awesome music and memories, Tom Petty. You'll be missed.
"But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity." - Martin Luther King, Jr

Crewe

Nice write up norm. Petty was never the out front David Lee Roth type so he would tend to be in the background as you describe.
I heard him in the late 70's and he hit his stride with Damn the Torpedoes...Id suggest a listen if you haven't already.
His big FU to MCA back when they wanted to raise the album price one dollar to 10 bucks endeared him to me and fans even more. He forced them to abort the increase. He guarded artists rights, ticket prices etc... He was truly a man of the people. He understood what it was to be a fan since he himself was such a big one.
Bringing Stevie Nicks in as an honorary Heartbreaker was awesome, as was the Traveling Wilbury's where he got to play with his heroes, the man was just plain talented and beyond humble.

In the 80's, Petty was rarely on the radio like other artists, many of them not deserving, but I'll never forget a friend of mine was a huge fan as well and once they inexplicably were playing a lot of Tom's songs on the radio one day and she said, it scares me when they play so much Petty, makes me think he died.
And now he has 😓