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Post subject: Re: Don't Bore Us, Get To The Chorus - A Tom Petty Thread
Posted: Wed October 04, 2017 2:59 am
jeeeesus relax already
Joined: Tue January 01, 2013 5:10 pm Posts: 35953
Here Comes My Girl used to be a song i related to back with my ex honey. I loved it so much...the feeling, the overall feeling of two against the world. And those guitars and tom´s weird voice...such a gem.
is Tom Petty the most consistent song writer of all time? 4 decades and rarely - if ever - succumbed to the ridiculousness of times (m looking at you 80's).
I was 18 when Full Moon Fever came out. Big memories of cruising around, windows down, blasting it from my tape deck. Playing it again right now.
I was just reminiscing with my high school girlfriend about Wildflowers. I would pick her up in my 1994 Jeep Wrangler and we would just drive around our hometown. Sometimes get lost in undeveloped subdivisions, park our car, take the top off, and just listen to wildflowers. Chat. Bullshit.
We maybe kissed a few times. That bothered me. But it turned out she was a lesbian. She is still one of my best friends to this day.
As odd as it may sound for a 30 year old to say it, Tom Petty's death feels like the death of my youth.
I grew up with the country music of my parents and the 90s alternative music that my older cousins listened to, so I had to find Tom Petty on my own. There was always to ubiquitous hits like American Girl, Mary Jane's Last Dance, and Free Fallin', but it wasn't until I bought his greatest hits that I really started connecting to his music.
After getting a car at 16, one of the first things I did was get a CD player installed. A kid with newfound freedom could just go anywhere and with some money in my pocket buy any CD I wanted, so I took to buying Greatest Hits of past artists that I wanted to explore more of; Hall and Oates, Journey, etc. This was the greatest hits CD I bought: American Girl Breakdown Listen to Her Heart I Need to Know Refugee Don't Do Me Like That Even the Losers Here Comes My Girl The Waiting You Got Lucky Don't Come Around Here No More I Won't Back Down Runnin' Down a Dream Free Fallin' Learning to Fly Into the Great Wide Open Mary Jane's Last Dance Something in the Air (Thunderclap Newman cover)
I don't think I really ever skipped a song when listening to it. Every song had something to it whether it be the lyrics, the jangle of some of the poppier songs, the blues of Breakdown... I could go on. Songs like Even the Losers that paint such a clear picture and touch on things you feel as a kid were hitting me at just the right time. Spending time with girls, striking out with them making you feel like a loser, dealing with feelings of inadequacy, wondering if the person you're spending time with will look fondly upon the time you spent together as you do; "couldn't've been that easy to forget about me." The songs just felt like growing up as an American kid. One of my favorite activities was just driving around taking random turns with another person and this album was almost always in the rotation and a great backdrop to see if your tastes align. I would joke back then that there was cool and then there was "Tom Petty cool." Through what I knew of him through his music and any article I read about him, this guy just seemed to get it, and made you feel like if you met him, he'd be this presence of zen almost like The Dude from the Big Lebowski.
The first time I saw Petty was in 2005 when the Black Crowes opened for him. This was the summer after I graduated from High School and I found myself a solid group of friends that I am still friends with to this day. I worked, but I didn't have the near the level of responsibilities that one with a full time job would expect. It was the perfect mix of freedom and friends that made it one of the best times of my life. I was having some moments that felt like they could've been referenced in a Petty song. This show taking place during that summer only made it so fitting.
We were 18 and not huge on getting drunk, but we all found a love of cigars, so we decided that would be our tailgate activity. Myself and 2 of my closest friends loaded into my friend's dark green crown vic boat of a car and went to the show. People walking by us called us "Castro" and we felt like we were such badasses. I remember having a stomach ache and taking a swig out of a pepto bottle before we each did a few shots of jack daniels and headed in. Just before graduation, another friend made it his mission to get me high for the first time, so this was the first show I'd go to where getting high was an option. I didn't plan on it, but the lawn at this show was just one big community of everybody passing around bowls, so I figure why not? This attitude led to me smoking opium that same night. I can't really say what it did to me because of how much I had smoked before.
I had never been to a show like it before. The crowd was hot from the moment Petty came out. The entire crowd just chanting "Pet-ty, Pet-ty" in-between songs as loudly as any crowd I've ever been a part of. Then there he was, basking in all of it, being ever the gracious host, "thank you, children." It wasn't a face-to-face moment, but he was the embodiment of what I thought "Tom Petty cool" meant. I can't even explain the electricity that was there that night. I've seen countless shows and have been moved by many moments, but they all seemed to fall short of that crowd response. I don't even consider it THE best show I've been to (I had a running list in my head that I've since forgot, but the first time I saw Paul McCartney and Pearl Jam might've been the only ones ahead of it) and it wasn't even the drugs that elevated it. It was the first time I ever heard a Traveling Wilburys song that he dedicated to "all of those Wilburys out there, wherever they may be traveling," which led me down that rabbit hole.
I feel like I've been chasing the dragon of this show ever since. Maybe it was growing older or maybe there was just something special in the air that night, but no show has ever come close to feeling like I was belonged to something special like it. I'd see Tom Petty a few times after. The summer of 2006 tour was a co-headline with the Allman Brothers. More friends could go, 2 of them ate mushrooms, I had a pot cookie, and while it peaked at just the right time and the show was great, but the crowd was different. It might've been that it was more of an Allman crowd, but I couldn't be sure.
The next time I saw him was in 2008. This show was preceded by me driving to Philly for a few concerts. Originally I was going to just one show of Pearl Jam's 2 night stand in Camden so I could drive back the next day and be rested for the Petty show the next night. I was going to the PJ show with former RMer Brain of Sam and she had someone drop out for the 2nd night, so I agreed to go to that one. She also found out that REM was playing Philly the night before with Modest Mouse and an up-and-coming the National opening up. Eddie Vedder sang a song with REM that night. I also got to meet a slew of RMers the next few days (hi stip!). Woke up early, drove 8 hours back to Buffalo just in time to get to my friend's house, hop in that same crown vic i went to the first show in and off we went. The show was great and even had some added highlight: it rained so hard that it felt like a hose was opened on us; the power went out a few times during the show; the Wilburys cover was "End of the Line." This was by all means a stellar set of days and that show topped it off, but there was still something missing.
I wouldn't go to another Petty show until 2014. I don't know if I was put off by that inkling that something didn't feel like the first time did, but you get busier, have more responsibilities, can't find friends who have the time to go to a show with you, etc. A few friends moved to Boston and Petty was playing Fenway. I always take a good excuse to go to Boston because this is one of my best friends. He ended up calling the box office that morning and found some tickets that were 12th row, but the handicapped section was in front of us, so we had clear views of the stage. I didn't do the typical run-up to the show of listening to Petty over and over again, but once I walked onto the field of Fenway, it started hitting me like I was seeing an old friend. They only had shitty beer and wine on the field and we figured out it would be cheaper to just get fucked up on white wine instead of sucking down coors light. Everything about the show was great from the people I spent time with, to the weather, to the band themselves. It didn't really matter to me this time that the feeling of that first show wasn't there.
I don't think anyone has one clear definition of growing up, but to me it has always been based on acceptance. Acceptance of who you are, what you can control, what makes you happy, that you don't have to compare present experiences to past ideals. It never really hit me before that my experience of Tom Petty kinda followed the idea of growing up for me until my friend messaged me yesterday "oh no, petty." This was it, the first artist that seemed timeless that I really connected to. Chris Cornell's death fucked me up, but he never seemed long for this world and his death hit on my desire for better mental health than anything. Tom Petty was growing up for me and all of this happened maybe 20 years after he was last largely relevant in the music scene beyond being more or less a greatest hits act.
Finding happiness in that last show that I saw was something that I could never do as a 20 year old that thought everything was going to just be amazing all the time. It was great to just be in that moment and enjoying something. Maybe it wasn't directly because of that show, but it helps me find the waypoints in my life/development. I'm not finding time to do those things like just driving around listening to greatest hits CDs or spending time with someone a la Even the Losers like "two cars parked on the overpass" or "it was nearly summer we sat on your roof, we smoked cigarettes and stared at the moon" because sometimes that's just where life takes you. Maybe adults don't do those things or get to do those things. Maybe you don't have to do those things, but just enjoy what you are doing in the moment.
I'm sure this all reads like stream of conscious babbling. If you read this, thanks for taking the time. Sorry it wasn't better or had a clearer message; just felt I had to get some thoughts out.
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