The Acclaimed Album Tom Petty Regretted Making—But Mike Campbell Doesn’t.
Upon releasing his second solo album, Wildflowers, in 1994, Tom Petty received a wave of critical acclaim. The album was also a commercial success, selling more than 3 million copies in the U.S. The rest of Petty’s life was not going nearly as well. He was about to divorce his wife of 22 years, Jane Benyo. Petty suffered from depression, self-medicated with h*roin, and became addicted.
This was the backdrop for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ recording of the soundtrack for the 1996 romantic comedy She’s the One. Having to write and record songs on a tight deadline didn’t agree with Petty. He did carry over four songs that were left off of Wildflowers, and the band recorded two cover songs—Beck’s “A*shole” and Lucinda Williams’ “Change the Locks”—for the soundtrack. Still, Petty penned eight new songs and co-wrote “Climb That Hill” with Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell. The relatively rushed timetable for making the album colored the way Petty viewed Songs and Music from She’s the One as a finished product.
A Mixed Verdict
When artists think poorly of their own work, fans and critics often share their opinions. This wasn’t the case for Songs and Music from She’s the One—at least not universally. Campbell has said that he likes Songs and Music from She’s the One. In an interview for Variety, he also said that he doesn’t think the album is generally viewed as inferior to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ other work. He opined, “I never felt like it was diminished or perceived as a weaker album, per se, compared to our other albums. It was just the album we did that year.”
In 1985, Petty released his sixth studio album with the Heartbreakers, Southern Accents, which featured songs such as ‘Rebels’, ‘Don’t Come Around Here No More’ and ‘Mary’s New Car’. While touring in support of the album later in 1985 and ’86, Petty displayed a Confederate flag on stage; a decision he very soon came to regret.
The battle flag, originally used in the 19th century for the Southern Confederate party during the American Civil War, has since become a symbol associated with white supremacists and Southern patriot activism.
After Dylann Roof murdered nine African-American churchgoers in 2015, Petty told Rolling Stone that he wished he’d never used the hate symbol. “I wish I had given it more thought,” he said. “It was a downright stupid thing to do.”
“The Confederate flag was the wallpaper of the South when I was a kid growing up,” Petty added, offering an explanation for his use of the flag. “I always knew it had to do with the Civil War, but the South had adopted it as its logo. I was pretty ignorant of what it actually meant. It was on a flagpole in front of the courthouse, and I often saw it in Western movies. I just honestly didn’t give it much thought, though I should have.”
Of all the songs ‘Here Comes My Girl’ is surely one of the strangest hits. Built around a almost-spoken word verse that lifts into a jubilant chorus, the song was part quintessential heartland rock and part experiment in songwriting.
“I struggled with that song for a little while,” Petty admitted in Paul Zollo’s book Conversations with Tom Petty. “I felt, ‘I have to learn this thing. I’m not going to let it get away from me.’ And then I got the idea for the narration. And once I started that, it started falling into place.(Source: Faroutmagazine)
“You used to hear [narration] down like that on this girl-group records from time to time,” Petty adds. “But wrapping it all up into one bundle, you sort of come up with something that’s original in itself.” By mixing the talking style of classic Shangri-La’s records with a Byrds-style chorus, Petty wound up creating something that could only have been written and sung by him.
Why Tom Petty Is One of the 100 Greatest Artists
While Presley passed away in 1977, just a year earlier, Petty made his s glistening arrival in 1976 with his debut effort.
In 1976, I'd been in Fleetwood Mac for about a year when I heard Tom Petty's debut. I became a fan right then. I loved the way Tom's Florida swamp-dog voice sounded in cahoots with Mike Campbell's guitar and Benmont Tench's keyboards. Tom had the same influences we had — the Byrds, Neil Young, Crosby, Stills and Nash — but he dropped in lots of serious old blues. And Tom is such a great singer and so charismatic onstage. I became such a fan that if I hadn't been in a band myself, I would have joined that one. (Rolling Stone)
When I started doing my first solo album, Bella Donna, my first thought was, "Who produces Tom Petty?" When they said Jimmy Iovine, I got Jimmy, because I wanted my solo work to be as much like Tom's as possible.
In 2014, Petty spoke with CBC and talked about his early love of Elvis. The musician ignited a fire in his belly, one which would change the direction of his life even if Petty was blissfully aware of it at the time. “Elvis was before The Beatles,” Petty explained. “My picture of Elvis was the American dream. Elvis was a kid from the south who had broken all the rules, he had become his own man, and looked like he did whatever he wanted, whether adults liked it or not,” he said with wry laughter.
“That was kind of the picture I had, but that didn’t look like something you could be for me. To be Elvis? Nobody has ever pulled that off, you’d have to be Elvis. You’d have to look like that for one thing, and orchestras would have to come out of the shrubbery and onto the beach. That just doesn’t happen, but, The Beatles looked like something that could be done to me,” he added.
Even though there was something unattainable about Elvis from the beginning, Petty couldn’t hold bad his adoration. However, in his heart, he knew that a kid like him could never be in line to the throne. Yet, Elvis was his first gateway into music, one that sent him down a rabbit hole where he explored, experimented, and eventually discovered his own voice.
