Tag: Heartbreakers

My renewed appreciation for Petty and Heartbreakers started with Johnny Cash. The band played on JRC’s second American Recording, unchained (1996). Cash sang Petty’s Southern Accents on it. I thought it was a great collection and that the album would be a big crossover hit. Unchained got to about #170 pop, but did better on the country charts.

Petty also sang harmony and played organ on I Won’t Back Down, written by Petty and Jeff Lynne on the Solitary Man album. Tom sang harmony on that title tune, and also on the Merle Haggard song The Running Kind from the Unearthed collection.

Then in June 2007, the two Traveling Wilburys albums, with bonus tracks, were released. I had purchased the originals back in the late 1980s, but someone gave me the reissues. At some point, I had purchased the 1995 box set. I realized anew what truths were contained in the titles. Even the losers DO get lucky sometimes. The waiting IS the hardest part.

20 songs

American Girl – I had a boss who called this American Squirrel. I do not know why.
Gator on the Lawn – this was on the box set
Honey Bee – from the second “solo” album. I like songs about the subject. Diana Ross and the Supremes had a song with the same title.
Even the Losers
Christmas All Over Again – one of the best contemporary – i.e., recorded in the past 50 years – holiday tunes

Don’t Come Around Here No More – a very creepy video
Don’t Do Me Like That
It’s Good To Be King – on the second purported solo album
You Wreck Me – ditto
You Don’t Know How It Feels – ditto

Into the Great Wide Open – “a rebel without a clue”
Walls (Circus)
Refugee
The Waiting
Change the Locks – a Lucinda Williams song from the She’s The One soundtrack

Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around – Stevie Nicks with Tom Petty; this shows up on several Heartbreakers collections
@$$4013 – a Beck Hansen song from she’s The One
Free Fallin’ – Tom Petty “solo”
End Of The Line – The Traveling Wilburys
I Won’t Back Down – Tom Petty “solo”