Tom Petty Opening Lines
Finally, one of my promised Petty posts.
The Onion A.V. Club posted their 14 Classic Tom Petty Opening Lines. It's a great topic. Probably part of why I love him so much is that so many of his songs pull you in with just a few words. I want to comment on a few lines from their list and a couple others they missed....
"She was an American girl / Raised on promises" (from "American Girl," Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, 1976)
Any discussion of Tom Petty songs starts here, at the beginning of his career, and still some of his best lyrics to date. That line, as simple as it is, creates a familiar image, with that faint hope that shows up in most of his music.
By the way, as the link Dara sent to me this morning shows, this is not a song about a suicidal girl in Florida. I could have told you that. It's right there in the lyrics. "She couldn't help thinking there's a little more to life somewhere else." While the girl clearly wants to get out of her rut, she doesn't want to kill herself.
"You think you're going to take her away / With your money and your cocaine" (from "Listen To Her Heart," You're Gonna Get It!, 1978)
While using the name of a drug is an easy way to get attention, this line is more than that. Most of Tom's great songs are about relationships. They're either about heartbreak (whether he's the initiator or the victim) or desparate attempts to save relationships. While not everyone relates to the cocaine part, most men can relate to a cool guy trying to take your girl away.
"Well, the talk on the street says you might go solo" (from "I Need To Know," You're Gonna Get It!, 1978)
"We got something / We both know it / We don't talk too much about it" (from "Refugee," Damn The Torpedoes, 1979)
Well it was nearly summer / We sat on your roof / We smoked cigarettes / And we stared at the moon" (from "Even The Losers," Damn The Torpedoes, 1979)
"Oh baby, don't it feel like heaven right now / Don't it feel like something from a dream" (from "The Waiting," Hard Promises, 1981)
"You better watch what you say / You better watch what you do to me" (from "You Got Lucky," Long After Dark, 1982)
I'm not typically big on love songs, but I like songs that actually examine relationships, which is what all these songs do.
"She's a good girl / Loves her mama / Loves Jesus / And America too" (from "Free Fallin'," Full Moon Fever, 1989)
The A.V. Club article calls this song almost a sequel to American Girl, and I'm not quite sure I agree with it. But it is a very similar, and similarly effective, opening line, I'll admit.
"She grew up in an Indiana town / Had a good-lookin' mama who never was around" (from "Mary Jane's Last Dance, Greatest Hits, 1993)
He really does like the word "She" to open his songs, doesn't he? Again, a strong image, and you instantly want to know more about the girl.
Now, some more great opening lines to Tom Petty songs that the A.V. Club overlooked.
The most obvious one to me is also the simplest...
"I won't back down, no, I won't back down."
You don't even know what he's talking about yet, but the way he delivers this line in, d'uh, "I Won't Back Down" puts you instantly in his corner.
Some other opening lines from Tom Petty songs create those great images, like openings to powerful stories that instantly draw you in.
"My sister got lucky, married a yuppie" from Yer So Bad
"Two gunslingers walked out in the street and one said, 'I don't wanna fight no more.'" from Two Gunslingers
"Eddie waited til he finished high school, he went to Hollywood, got a tattoo" from Into the Great Wide Open
"Well I started out down a dirty road" from Learning to Fly
"I'm in love with a girl on marijuana, she said if i'm not stoned I don't wanna" from Girl on LSD
Others are just about pure human emotion.
"Some days are diamonds, some days are rocks" from Walls
"I got a room at the top of the world tonight" from Room at the Top
I could go on, but I'll stop here. Almost every Tom Petty song has a great opening line.
posted by Justin S. @ 8/10/2006 10:11:00 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
This is great. I love music that actually says something, especially when you feel like it says something specifically about you. You know, like it was written for you. American Girl is that song for me. I grew up and currently live in a small town. I've always known that there is more life for me somewhere else, and my logic has always been that it's a great big world, which I should clearly experience. I moved away and lived in a few bigger towns (and loved it and felt alive) and then moved back due to some life circumstances. While I know living here again is only temporary, I can't help but feel that all that life going on somewhere else should be mine and it's passing me by. But if I have to die, I'll keep that one little promise to myself!
I'm torn between which one speaks to me more: American Girl or Learning to Fly. I think it's a tie.
Now that the whole American Girl-Gainesville-suicide myth is debunked, it speaks to me even more. Although, with the mention of 441, it still speaks to me about a girl trapped in a podunk town -- perhaps in Florida? -- wanting to break away from everything and everyone that's holding her back. Learning to Fly has a similar feel, just a little further along the journey. And, maybe Mary Jane's Last Dance is towards the end?
I was surpirsed by the Smopes article saying he was living in California when I wrote that... I mean, knowing that he's from Gainesville, and having 441 in the song, surely he had to be thinking about a girl in Florida (albeit not a suicidal one).
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